Rush around mining caused a shortage of video cards in Russia. What to do when the train has not left

Last week we noticed that a lot of video cards and components for computers come to our warehouse in Delaware. At first we were delighted with this trend. At last, people are beginning to realize how much cheaper it is in the States! And then, after another purchase of three cards at a time, they thought. And climbed to study the issue. It turned out, mining again became a very profitable business, and people raise a lot of money, ordering maps from America, and mine in Russia.

In Russia, an acute shortage of video cards. Miners cryptocurrency buy them in batches - almost instantly and at any price. In Belarus, the problem is even more serious: if Russian distributors receive a new batch from abroad, it does not reach its neighbors, there are enough of their “miners”. Especially popular are the new AMD cards, as well as the GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080. Such even in Moscow is not always buy. There are stories about customers coming to the store and taking with them all the cards that are in stock. 200, 300, or even 600 pieces each.

Video cards go up

Since the end of March, the bitcoin exchange rate against the dollar has grown by 200%, and some of the other cryptocurrencies have gone further. Interest in this area has become massive: it has become easy to mine, more and more people decide to do it. According to estimates, in Russia now there are several tens of thousands of miners, since the beginning of 2017, their number has increased by 5-7 times.

This affected the price of devices. In just a month and a half, video cards in Russia went up in price by half. Devices that were sold for 16-18 thousand rubles at the beginning of spring now cost more than 30 thousand. And even at this price there are no devices in retail outlets. People in the reviews complain that the cards need to be pre-ordered, and they are promised to be brought in 15-20 days (!!!). We are from the United States across the Atlantic are taking faster!

Department of inform. Moscow Technologies provides statistics that the average price of a video card in the first quarter of 2017 was 9,300 rubles. This is 6% cheaper than in the last months of 2016, that is, the price went down. The trend reversal occurred in April, when Bitcoin made its rally from $ 1,000 to $ 2,000. Already in May, according to Yandex.Market, the average price of a card was 17,040 rubles. Now she is under twenty thousand. Those who just wanted cheap to buy a good video card for gaming, remain out of work.

Bitcoin is not very profitable

Many of the old-fashioned way believe that Bitcoin minate with video cards. In fact, yes, there are such old-timers (and Chinese on farms). At the beginning of the year, a comrade who was purchasing new maps for this purpose would have been looked upon with deep sympathy - as the person who decided to create an opening page on MySpace. He would have been told: “late, friend, this gold rush has already exhausted itself”. But now the bitcoins again give quite a good profit - because of the inflated prices. These prices are more than blocked even the new hashrate.

BitcoinWorldWide experts have found that the popular powerful AntMiner S9, which is selling for $ 2500 on Amazon, generates approximately 0.18 Bitcoin per month. This is about $ 500 per month, even if we consider the cost of electricity. Even in the winter it would be $ 180 a month, and the video card did not pay off even for a year. And now it is beginning to make a profit after the fifth month (miners hope that even earlier - if prices continue to rise).

But in practice, there are more profitable alternatives to bitcoin mining. The district is full of “mines” with other cryptocurrencies, to which the global public has not yet reached. Now miners emit, for example, Ethereum (course $ 340) and LiteCoin (course $ 45).

The course Ethereum since the beginning of 2017 has grown 24 times. This made mining a super profit for everyone who participates in the process, no matter what capacity it has. With the current price and comparative ease of extraction, blocks of several video cards, which may have Ethereum, pay for themselves in two months. Last year, the payback period was 6-9 months.

Where can I get a video card

Ethereum and new cryptocurrencies mined just mostly not on special super expensive ASIKs, but on video cards. This is usually more profitable in the long run:

• opens a wide range of cryptocurrency for mining;
• farm easier to upgrade - changing the video card to a newer;
• the farm, if desired, is easier to sell - both in whole and in parts.

Plus - video cards will always come in handy, even if something global happens, and the price of cryptocurrencies will fall several times. Hence the cunning Russian "miners" who buy up all the latest cards in batches, including through us.

In the States, such a rise in prices for video cards, as in Russia, oddly enough, is not observed. There are three reasons for this:

• US electricity costs 2-4 times more than in Russia, and mining becomes less profitable;
• Americans average salaries are higher, so 0.2 bitcoins per month do not seem to be significant;
• video cards in online stores the United States comes a hundred times more, and it is almost impossible to buy it all up.

Therefore, in America there are a lot of video cards, and exactly those that are suitable for mining (and demanding games). There is no shortage there, and they are much cheaper than in Russia, especially now.

Compare:

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING X 6G. In American B & H - $ 279 . In Russia - $ 550 (35 thousand rubles).

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080. On Amazon - $ 580 . In Russia - $ 980 (55 thousand rubles).

ASUS Radeon RX 580. On Amazon - $ 599.99 . In Russia - $ 1050 (60 thousand rubles).

The only restriction is that you can enter purchases for no more than € 1000 per month per person (otherwise you will have to pay a fee). Therefore, if you take a video card for mining, you should take no more than two or three - or order separately in the name of your wife, grandmother, dog, anyone. In fact, there are many ways to circumvent the customs limit, and they all googling if there is a desire to get rich, like forgetful Norwegians who bought cryptocurrency, or the legendary pizza seller for 10,000 bitcoins.

The main thing to remember is that video cards (and any other electronics, in fact) are always one and a half to two times more profitable in the United States than in domestic stores. If the device is not very cheap, it makes sense to check its price at least in Amazon.

Bonus reader

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