A Chinese cryptocurrency miner with the surname Li recently revealed that he had invested “hundreds of thousands” of Chinese yuan (CNY) to purchase nearly a hundred mining rigs during the second half of 2017 – when digital currency prices reached their all-time highs.
Li also resigned from his job at a small financial firm and began focusing on his crypto mining business. As many digital asset investors have now admitted, Li had hoped to make some “quick and easy” money by mining Bitcoin (BTC).
Cryptocurrencies Drop 99% From All-Time High
However, the prices of all major cryptocurrencies have dropped drastically – with some popular crypto assets such as Nxt and Qtum losing as much as 99% of their value from the time when the market capitalization of the crypto market exceeded $800 billion (in January 2018).
Because of the huge drop in cryptocurrency prices, Li said:
By mid-June, my mining business’s profit margin had dropped by 90%. One of my friends who also mines altcoins suffered more, nearly losing all his investment.
After suffering huge financial losses, Li was forced to shut down his mining farm and he also tried to sell his mining rigs by posting an ad on an e-commerce platform for second-hand electronic hardware items.
However, Li struggled to find buyers for his expensive mining equipment as he claims to have not been able to find a party that has made a reasonable offer – even though it has now been three months since he posted the ad.
Useless Piles Of Scrap Metal
The Chinese resident also said he was only able to sell two mining machines for just 700 yuan (appr. $105). When he tried to sell the mining hardware equipment to other local electronics dealers, they also refused to take them.
At the time when Li had purchased the crypto miners, they were in very high demand and hard to get, however, he now describes them as useless piles of scrap metal that lie covered in thick layers of dust.
Another Chinese miner with the surname Ma revealed that he had to close down his mining farm as well, due to the extended crypto bear market. Ma said he then sold four of his mining rigs for only 850 yuan (appr. $125) – which is less than 25 percent of what a new machine costs.
Commenting on the significant drop in prices of mining hardware, Ma said that devices which had been introduced in early 2018 with computational [capacity] of “10 TH/s per chip” now only trade for around 1,000 yuan (appr. $150).
New Mining Equipment Cheaper Than Used Hardware
Also, mining equipment developed using newer technologies, which are now increasingly being offered by relatively small hardware manufacturers, can be purchased brand new for even cheaper rates than used equipment of equivalent computational power.
When crypto prices skyrocketed, the Chinese residents said that vendors selling digital currency miners could be found everywhere in Huaqiangbei, which is a popular electronics hub in Shenzhen, China.
A Shenzhen-based vendor said:
All of mining machines are [now] sold at a discount of 30%. If you want to buy more than one, we can offer a better price and will give you more power cables and associated accessories for free.
Liang Sizhong, a local PC repair shop owner, said:
Mining rig retailers and miners, the sellers of second-hand miner components … are … under tons of pressure as the price of used graphic cards [has dropped] sharply. [In most cases], we do not collect used devices for recycling.
