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Re:

In 2021, a Crypto-Mining Farm Claimed RTX 4090 and RX 7000 GPUs Were Making Millions. The Evidence Didn’t Prove It

A 2021 Flexpool account displayed extraordinary rates under RTX 4090 Ti and RX 7000 labels, but the listing did not verify the GPUs, coin, costs or millions in payouts.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read

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Bottom line: A December 13, 2021 HotHardware report described a Flexpool account labeled with unreleased “RTX 4090 Ti” and “RX 7000” workers. The account displayed extraordinary hash rates and a rough estimate of about $145,000 per day—more than $4.3 million per month—but the listing did not prove the hardware, the coin mined, the electricity costs or that those earnings were actually paid out.

What the Flexpool listing showed

HotHardware reported that the account’s average rate was 2.4 TH/s, with a peak of 4.3 TH/s. Three worker labels and their displayed rates were:

Worker label shown in the report Displayed rate What is established
4090Ti-Overclock-Test 1.25 TH/s average A pool-dashboard label and rate reported by HotHardware; not an independently verified RTX 4090 Ti benchmark
RX7000-Overlock-Test 507.5 GH/s A reported label and rate; the hardware was not confirmed
RX7000-Control-Test 688.6 GH/s A reported label and rate; the hardware was not confirmed

The names referred to products that had not been released when the article appeared. A worker name in a mining pool is an account identifier, not proof of the physical device connected to it.

Why the reported rates looked implausible for consumer GPUs

For scale, HotHardware compared the alleged 1.25 TH/s rate with a roughly 110–120 MH/s estimate for an RTX 3090, citing a 2021 WCCFTech comparison. On that comparison, 1.25 TH/s would be about the output of 10,000 RTX 3090 cards. That arithmetic illustrates why the listing attracted attention; it does not establish that 10,000 cards—or any particular number of GPUs—were operating.

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The dashboard did not identify a worker count, model numbers, power draw or the mining algorithm. HotHardware therefore raised dedicated application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners as one possible explanation. That is only a possibility: the report did not identify the actual machines behind the account.

Where the “millions” estimate came from

Using the reported average rate, HotHardware estimated approximately $145,000 per day and more than $4.3 million per month. Those figures were a rough calculation, not audited proceeds. The report did not establish:

  • which cryptocurrency the account was mining;
  • the number or type of machines;
  • electricity consumption or the local power price;
  • pool fees, downtime, maintenance or other operating costs;
  • payout records, wallet transactions or realized profit.

Because electricity costs vary by location and the underlying hardware was unknown, the estimate cannot be treated as personal income, cash received or net profit. A displayed hashrate can also reflect an account configuration or attribution that differs from the physical equipment actually doing work.

Why this was not proof of RTX 4090 or RX 7000 performance

The report’s evidence was a screenshot or account view with self-selected worker names. It was not a laboratory test, a manufacturer specification or a reproducible benchmark. No source in the report independently verified that an RTX 4090 Ti or an RX 7000 card was connected, and the products were unreleased at the time.

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That distinction matters financially. A pool dashboard can show what an account claims or submits, while profitability depends on the coin, algorithm, accepted shares, payout rules, hardware cost and energy bill. None of those details turns the 2021 labels into evidence that a consumer GPU could generate the quoted revenue.

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The Ethereum timeline readers should not mix into the 2021 story

The Flexpool report did not identify the coin being mined, so it cannot be accurately described as an Ethereum-mining operation. Ethereum’s later network change is separate context. According to Ethereum.org’s Merge documentation, The Merge was executed on September 15, 2022 and reduced Ethereum’s energy consumption by approximately 99.95% by replacing proof of work with proof of stake.

Ethereum.org states: “Since The Merge, validators are assigned to secure Ethereum Mainnet, and mining on proof-of-work is no longer a valid means of block production.” That current rule does not reveal what the 2021 Flexpool account mined, nor does it validate the account’s claimed hardware or earnings.

How to read similar mining-profit claims

  1. Separate labels from evidence. Treat worker names as identifiers until hardware is independently demonstrated.
  2. Check the unit. TH/s, GH/s and MH/s differ by orders of magnitude; convert them before comparing devices.
  3. Demand the missing economics. Coin, algorithm, power draw, electricity rate, fees and payout history are required to estimate profit.
  4. Distinguish revenue from profit. A gross estimate does not subtract electricity, equipment, cooling, repairs or financing.
  5. Check the date and network. Mining rules can change, as Ethereum’s 2022 transition demonstrates.

A GPU mining-rig frame or similar hardware cannot validate this historical claim or guarantee returns. The 2021 account remains an attention-grabbing, unverified attribution—not proof that RTX 4090 or RX 7000 GPUs were “raking in millions.”

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