Video card prices in China fall sharply after new actions against cryptocurrency
Video card prices have fallen sharply in China after the country introduced new measures against mining and warned banks to stop supporting cryptocurrency transactions.
The South China Morning Post reports based on data from the Chinese e-commerce company Manmanbuy.com that, for example, the Nvidia RTX 3060 cost 610 euros on Monday, while the price of this video card in May was still 1752 euros. Another example is the Nvidia Quadro P1000: this cheaper gpu previously cost almost 3000 yuan or 389 euros in China, but that has now fallen to 315 euros. These prices are based on a JD.com franchised store. On average, prices would have fallen by up to 45 percent.
In particular, the drop in prices is said to be the result of a recent cryptocurrency mining ban for southwestern Sichuan province. This province has a lot of cheap electricity via hydropower and until recently was one of the last places in China where cryptocurrency mining was still allowed. That changed last weekend, when a ban was also issued for this province. This has already happened in the provinces of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, for example, which can also supply relatively cheap electricity. Electricity companies in Sichuan must notify customers with relatively high electricity consumption by June 25.
On Monday, the Chinese central bank warned national banks not to support cryptocurrency. The Chinese central bank has stressed to a number of Chinese banks and payment platforms that they must strictly follow the rules regarding cryptocurrency and that they should no longer support cryptocurrency transactions. Several banks have indicated that they will comply with this, the BBC writes . For example, the mobile and online payment system Alipay will monitor illegal cryptocurrency transactions and the Agricultural Bank of China will conduct due diligence on its customers to filter out illegal transactions.
These measures seem to have already had an effect on, among other things, the price of bitcoin. This price fell over the weekend, which is likely related to the significant drop in hashrate in China. The head of a cryptocurrency exchange told Bloomberg that this may have led to additional sales.