This increase in bitcoin price has come as a shock to the crypto mining industry, with the cost of mining equipment also soaring during this time. More devices are being sold to chip away at bitcoin mining at Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei district, where the area is often called the epicenter for crypto hardware, with prices for mining devices jumping 30 percent while demand is surging.
Mineable, the popular mining device Antminer S21 335T, has gone from $3,836.19 (RMB 28,000) in last year to $5,600 (RMB 40,700) now, reported Wen Wei Po. The premium Antminer S21 XP, with its water cooling technology, sells out even faster on Bitmain’s official website and is being seen in even higher demand.
Bitcoin Surge Spurs Global Demand for Mining Gear
China’s Huaqiangbei merchants are getting unprecedented bulk orders from international buyers, including those from Russia, the United States, and Canada. As Bitcoin’s price surges, mining becomes more profitable, even at higher equipment costs, with orders running from hundreds to thousands of units.
A Shenzhen merchant told CoinDesk: “given the substantial demand for high-end mining gear, it reflects the worldwide thirst for Bitcoin mining as Bitcoin’s value is on the rise.”
Crypto mining operations in Hong Kong are set to boom due to growing demand in mainland China, where the 2021 ban on cryptocurrency mining remains in place. This allows Hong Kong merchants to use Hong Kong’s free trade policies and streamlined logistics to deliver mining machines to Hong Kong in under 24 hours, to be then routed out to international markets.
The Shenzhen-based merchant said Hong Kong’s strategic position allows us to efficiently meet global demand.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty of 108.52 trillion is the highest ever on Dec. 16, rising 4.43 percent after 874,944 blocks have been mined. According to Hashrate Index, the average network hashrate for the last two weeks is 771 EH/s, and the 7-day average is over 800 EH/s.
This shows how time is running out the competition in between the miners and the crunch that Bitcoin’s price escalation carries on the macroeconomic scale. By contrast, though China enforces a firm ban on mining activities, Hong Kong’s lax legal term for mining hardware trade operationalizes a loophole to cater for global demand.
All of these have made for a perfect storm of price, mining difficulty, and demand for the best of the best equipment for the mining industry. In Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the merchants stand to gain from booming international sales while buyers contend with costlier purchases.
The ripple effect in mining economics, or the world economy, and hardware markets particularly will only grow as Bitcoin’s trajectory continues upwards.
