The "mine tycoons" drove to the factory to collect graphics cards, while gamers waged a war on the Internet against miners.
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| Inside a Bitcoin mine in Sichuan, China. Photo: People Visual |
For many gamers, 2021 is considered a "dark year" when cryptocurrencies take the throne, profits from Bitcoin and Ethereum mining increase, leading to a thirst for graphics cards. Card prices are pushed up too high and scarcity makes it difficult for gamers to buy a new set of PCs to play games.
"If this situation continues this year, I can only quit," said Wang Yong, 29 years old, assembling computer rigs for gamers in Xi'an (China). The room where Yong worked was littered with electrical wires and computer accessories, several mainframes unfinished on the desk.
Yong said the price of graphics cards this year is still extremely high compared to a few years ago, the cost of installing a set of desktop computers to work with is thousands of yuan higher than before. "If you want a device for work or play, the best option for everyone this year is to buy a laptop or game console from the manufacturer instead of assembling it yourself. You have to pay a ridiculous amount of money because Card prices are pushed up too high, not even competitive with cryptocurrency miners even with money," Yong said.
In 2020, Nvidia released the RTX30 series, of which the RTX3060 is priced at 2,499 yuan (8.9 million) while earlier this year, this model was for sale on JD.com for 5,499 yuan (19.7 million dong) million dong).
"Cryptocurrency dealers and miners are willing to buy at high prices and no need for after-sales and warranty policies. Gamers have almost no chance of winning in the graphics card war. Cryptocurrency miners make money. very quickly, so they are willing to spend a lot of money to collect goods," Yong said.
Not only small shop owners like Wang Yong, even cryptocurrency miners feel this graphics card thirst. A miner nicknamed Ahui said: "Actually, mining cryptocurrency is not as difficult as people think. You just need to prepare the hardware and turn on the power and all problems will be solved by the software automatically, after there you can wait for profits".
Ahui started mining cryptocurrency from February 2021 with 15 graphics cards, mainly GTX 3070 and 3060i series. "The initial cost was 180,000 yuan (VND 643 million), after three months of capital recovery. In the following months, I made at least 10,000 yuan (VND 35 million) after deducting expenses." He told and said that the profit mainly depends on the price of cryptocurrency going up and down, but miners rarely lose.
During a period of high cryptocurrency prices, Ahui not only had to compete with gamers like Wang Yong for graphics cards, but also with other miners.
"I only have a dozen graphics cards here, but many ranchers are holding tens of thousands. They rent a hydroelectric dam to build a farm. A large farm has hundreds of diggers with thousands of cards. Profit The huge profits from Bitcoin and Ethereum mining caused demand to skyrocket.Some ranchers drove trucks straight to the gates of graphics card manufacturers in Guangdong and other places to pick up goods, blocking the supply to the market. ", Ahui said.
The people behind these massive mining pools are known as the "miners" and they have devoured most of the graphics cards on the market. They also did not forget to inflate their thirst for cards to push the price up and take advantage of selling for a profit.
Xiao Kong, an active member of the gaming community, came up with the idea of boycotting the price pusher to "reset the market order". He mobilized a group of gamers to "sell virtual cards" on e-commerce platforms.
"If we set the original price on the e-commerce platform, the algorithm will automatically prioritize the price from low to high. The merchant's graphics card will be pushed to the bottom and they cannot reach customers. Even our prices make it difficult for traders to close orders," Xiao Kong said.
Not only that, on JD.com, many gamers take advantage of the loophole to disrupt the merchant's business. They place orders without payment for 48 hours to make the stores "sold out" and stop selling. The graphics card war between miners, gamers and merchants went on for a long time.
People like Kong admit this trick has little effect, but they also don't want traders making tens of thousands of yuan in arbitrage and miners not being able to sweep the market. However, even ordinary users and gamers cannot access the graphics card.
Looking at it more positively, the graphics card war helps Xiao Kong get out of the game vortex. Unable to buy cards, he no longer spends much time on the game. He used the money he was going to buy a computer to buy a camera, found a new hobby outside and met his girlfriend.
Via Sina
