Finally, it seems that gamers are starting to minute glimpses of light while suffering in the dark tunnel that is bitcoin mining. Miners and scalpers have been buying GPUs by the cartons using bots and while stores never really did anything to stop them, it seems that China’s latest crackdowns on mining operations have reduced demand somewhat.
Prices for GPUs in China have started to drop after China banned cryptocurrency mining, ownership, and trading. They touted the financial risks involved in the currency and its volatile nature. The prices of GPUs, which are required for complex computations in order to mine bitcoin, have now dropped as demand has dropped significantly.
The decrease in demand is a direct result of Beijing ordering a full crackdown on mining operations. The crackdown has even extended into the Sichuan province, which is the second biggest province in terms of bitcoin mining in the country. Other provinces where bitcoin mining is all but banned are Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.
Nvidia’s Quadro P1000 is now going for 2,429 yuan or $376 on JD.com, a China e-commerce website. The GPU dropped the price from 3,000 yuan or $464. Nvidia’s RTX 3060, dropped from 13,499 yuan or $2087 to 4,699 yuan or $763. That’s more than half of its inflated price. Although the 3060 is still far from its MSRP, this is still a good thing to see.
Now we only need this trend to make its way to the western market. Although many are trying their best to accommodate bitcoin and even rope in the disgruntled miners from China. El Salvador has made the cryptocurrency legal tender and Miami is now offering cheaper energy to welcome new miners into the city. The fact still remains that China was the biggest hub of bitcoin mining.
Nvidia has crippled the mining capabilities of its latest RTX GPU offerings but their efforts could be cracked easily as the same has happened before with RTX 3060. Still, it’s something that will slow miners from bulk buying these GPUs. Nvidia is also stopping the production of old cards in order to boost the supply of their newer cards. It seems that small efforts everywhere are finally coming together to revive the gaming GPU market.