Chia's "hard drive scam"

"Value investment" and "blockchain empowerment" have been mentioned every year. Today, the editor has finally understood that the first ones to gain value and be empowered in the market should be graphics cards and hard drives.
As of now, all graphics cards above RTX3060, which are priced at 7,199 yuan on JD.com, are out of stock. In February this year, Nvidia officially announced that the price of RTX 3060 was about 2,000 yuan. I can understand that graphics cards are hard to find in the market due to the global chip shortage. However, it is really puzzling that solid-state drives, which ship hundreds of millions of units a year, are out of stock.
The story of all this starts with the popular Chia, which was founded in August 2017 by Bram Cohen, the founder of BitTorrent, a protocol that once occupied 60% of the global Internet traffic. Official data shows that Chia aims to develop a platform that can optimize blockchain and smart transactions, and is currently building the Chia Network to improve the global financial and payment systems and build Chia into an enterprise-level cryptocurrency.
Unlike Bitcoin, Chia mining requires storage space instead of computing power. In other words, when mining Chia, the larger the hard disk space, the higher the efficiency. People who have mined Filecoin should be somewhat familiar with Chia.
With the surge in FIL in March, the story of Chia quickly spread in the circle. More and more people believed that Chia’s token must be the “code of wealth” because they saw the myth of FIL getting rich quickly.
Hard disk bubble
The popularity of Chia is not only due to the good story of the project itself, but also the support of hard drive manufacturers. The shortage of a large number of hard drives has caused many friends outside the editor's circle to ask me what Chia is, not to mention people in the circle. Every day, you can see people asking for hard drive supplies in groups and circles of friends.
Even a leading project like Filecoin has not caused a shortage of hard drives, but Chia, which has just appeared in the market, has caused such a big stir. Public data shows that the total shipments of solid-state drives in 2020 were 330 million, with a total storage capacity of 27EB. The total shipments of mechanical hard drives were 259 million, of which Seagate shipped 110 million, with a total storage capacity of 1018 EB, which is 2524 times the total computing power of the current Chia network.
So where did all those hard drives go? What is even more puzzling is that, according to reports, some merchants said that the price of buying from dealers is also very high, and the profit from a hard drive is only about 100 yuan. According to an investigation by Times Finance reporters, there is actually no shortage of hard drives in the current market, but the Chinese agents of Seagate and Western Digital are holding back on shipments.
In addition, an insider revealed that Western Digital's agency held a meeting on the evening of April 18 and made it clear that products could not be shipped to dealers and those that had been shipped would be recalled.

The editor checked the overseas hard drive prices on Amazon again. The prices of the 6T and 8T hard drives, which are currently the most out-of-stock in the market, are maintained at around 1,116 yuan and 1,517 yuan, and they are not out of stock. However, the customs inspection for storage hardware such as hard drives purchased overseas is very strict. By the time you buy it on Amazon and it is sent to you, the bonus period of Chia mining has passed.
At this point, the answer to why there is such a severe shortage of hard drives in China is already very clear.
The tide always recedes. After Coinbase went public, the price of the currency was pulled towards a climax step by step, but the pullback on April 18th woke up many people.
Bitcoin also fell back to around $51,000, and ETH, LTC, etc. fell to varying degrees. Among them, FIL, which was mentioned above, fell to around $127 and is now trading at $156. The corresponding market craze for Chia has also begun to subside.
As global finance has been boosted by the United States, more and more stories of getting rich quickly have emerged, especially in the cryptocurrency circle, and behind this is a lot of anxiety. It is undeniable that finance is the "end" of all industries, and cryptocurrency is the new "beginning" of finance. As for where the market will go in the future, we can only wait and see, but we must always remember that risk and greed are always two sharp knives hanging over the heads of investors.
There are many stories similar to Chia. After all, it is a bull market, there are always endless stories to tell and endless wine to drink.
As of now, Bitcoin's market capitalization is about to fall below 50%. The short-term correction is also accumulating momentum for subsequent price surges. This round of bull market will definitely last much longer than expected. Finally, I wish you all freedom soon. (Baijiahao)