The price of the Chia cryptocurrency has fallen by 85% over four months, triggering mass sell-offs of HDDs and SSDs used for its mining. VNExpress reports.
The publication noted a large number of listings for selling hard drives and solid-state drives in one of the specialized Facebook groups.
“Price fluctuations in Chia have forced investors to sell their equipment at a loss, as there are more sellers than buyers,” said Hoang Chung, community administrator.
In mid-May, Chia was priced at $1,551, according to CoinGecko. By the end of the month, it had lost half of its value. At the time of writing, the coin was trading around $243.
Amid the hype, the price of 6 TB HDDs jumped to almost $300. Now miners are selling these devices for $110. And, judging by the trajectory, prices will continue to fall.
The situation is more challenging for SSD owners, as Chia mining significantly accelerates wear and tear.
According to experts, mining reduces the lifespan of a 512 GB SSD from five years to two months.
Chia Network, created by Bram Cohen, the author of the BitTorrent protocol, uses the Proof-of-Space and Proof-of-Time consensus algorithms. In April, due to a surge of interest in the coin, miners created a local shortage of HDDs and SSDs in China.
The coin was positioned by its creators as an environmentally friendly cryptocurrency. They argued that hard drives and solid-state drives are easier to source and consume far less energy.
As of now, according to Chia Explorer, the coin occupies disk space of 41.3 exabytes — more than 2.5 million HDDs with 16 TB capacity.
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