Last month, there was a lot of data showing that GPU graphics cards have begun to plummet.In Australia, RTX 3080 even plummeted 35% in one day, so even though the cryptocurrency has risen slightly now, scalpers with large inventories still have to start thinking of ways to clear out their stocks. A report in China pointed out a while ago that merchants in Huaqiangbei began to sell off their stocks, and some people have already lost hundreds of thousands of yuan.
The graphics card bubble has finally burst! Huaqiangbei sells off meat
More than a year ago, when graphics cards were out of stock and cryptocurrencies soared, stores with a large stock of graphics cards were almost able to make money. The per capita profit in the Huaqiangbei IC circle reached more than one million yuan, and people queued up every day to wait for stores to test mining equipment. When encountering people who want to bargain, store owners may even refuse to do so because they believe that the price of graphics cards will only get higher and higher and there is no way it will fall.
However, after this year, various bad news came out one after another. First, there was a sharp decline in cryptocurrency, official price cuts for GPUs, new graphics cards were about to be launched, etc. Scalper bosses who were originally only optimistic that graphics cards would become more and more expensive began to change their minds.
Chen Li, a graphics card dealer, said, “I knew it would fall, but I didn’t expect it to fall so fiercely and violently.” When the currency circle plummeted in May 2021, the boss of Huaqiangbei was not so afraid. However, the recent plummet in graphics card prices has made us deeply feel our own insignificance, “We are like a small boat in the sea and cannot control this downward trend.”
According to industry insiders, since March, some RTX 3080 models have fallen below 6,600 yuan, only one step away from the official recommended selling price of 5,499 yuan, and compared with the highest spot price of 16,000 yuan, there is a huge difference.
This Chen Li had already cut and sold the meat before, and no longer bought any ready stock. Now most merchants in Huaqiangbei don’t have the ready stock. If you want it, just ask the factory to send it directly. Chen Li even added that with this wave of graphics card prices plummeting, all the money previously earned has been lost.
Another business owner revealed that he has lost hundreds of thousands of yuan after the sharp decline in graphics cards. Now he can only find ways to control the quantity of goods purchased, and his expectations for making money have been greatly reduced.
However, the interesting part is that merchants are all selling, and some miners do see another business opportunity. Wang En, who was the boss of Huaqiangbei in the morning and became a miner in the evening, said, “When the graphics card fell, I used the low-priced graphics card for mining. When the graphics card went up, I took the excess graphics card to the market and sold it at a high price.” With this operation, he has safely weathered this wave of graphics card price cuts.
Wang En also mentioned that many people in the overseas market are optimistic about the opportunity of the sharp decline in graphics cards, and they are going crazy to exceed the bottom. Some customers even frequently ask Wang En for additional assembled mining machines. “The day before yesterday, I happened to have a Russian customer who bought more than 10 graphics cards from me. Customers in the Middle East also bought crazy.”
As for the reasons why graphics cards will fall so sharply this time and the bubble bursts, in addition to what everyone knows, Chen Li believes that it is “regulatory intervention.” According to his observation, since China banned mining, miners’ willingness to buy graphics cards has been greatly reduced, and there has even been a phenomenon of selling graphics cards, and then the price has slowly fallen. Now that the risk of mining is too great, the supply of goods on the second-hand market has also increased, and the purchasing power of new graphics cards has relatively declined.
The supervision will only become stricter and more and more countries will join in. Therefore, for players who want to buy low-priced graphics cards, it is highly recommended to wait. Seeing that the merchants in Huaqiangbei are so worried, there is a good chance they will wait for the original price graphics cards.
Previous tweets about Australian graphics cards falling 35% in one day:
GPU pricing is falling off a cliff right now. Locally the "ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC" was $2299 yesterday, today a few retailers have slashed it to $1499 AUD. That's 35% off over night.
(kick in the capacitors if you bought one yesterday)
— Hardware Unboxed (@HardwareUnboxed) March 15, 2022
Source: KOCPC Chinese