"A developer driver inadvertently included code used for internal development which removes the hash rate limiter on RTX 3060 in some configurations," Nvidia admitted.

As the Verge notes, Nvidia had previously boasted about the robustness of the mining limitation. Last month, Nvidia spokesman Bryan Del Rizzo tweeted that there was a "secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter."

Nvidia quickly removed the driver from its website, but this isn't the kind of thing the company can take back. Now that the driver is in the wild, we can expect it to circulate online indefinitely. Which means that anyone who has an RTX 3060 and wants to convert it for mining will be able to do so.