(ECNS) -- Surging Bitcoin prices have driven the video card market crazy, with investors rushing to buy the cards in large quantities for Bitcoin mining, Beijing Youth Daily reports.
According to the paper, the price of Bitcoins skyrocketed to 21,019.89 yuan ($3,090.02) on June 12 from 7,301 yuan on April 26, up 188 percent in one and a half months. On June 25, the market closed at 19,745 yuan.
Video card vendors attributed supply shortages to investors snapping up the cards for Bitcoin mining.
With stronger computing capability than CPUs, video cards are favored by Bitcoin investors. In one case, an investor purchased 400 cards, the paper reported.
An investor showcasing a Bitcoin mining machine, which consists of a mainboard and six video cards, said: "In addition to enhanced computing capability, it also helps save money, for the majority of costs for Bitcoin mining lie in storage space and power consumption." Other miners could have hundreds of similar machines, it was added.
In Beijing, medium and high-end video cards were out of stock, and those still available saw their prices rise 25 to 40 percent in the last two months.
Jin, a computer fan, said he was unable to find an AMD video card at the computer accessory shops he visited in Beijing's Chaoyang District in late June. Finally, a vendor offered to help, but warned him to "be mentally prepared for the price", which later proved to be 800 yuan higher than before. "It beat my expectation, so I had to tell the vendor I won't buy it.
In a computer accessories market in Chaoyang, for mainstream AMD and NVIDIA video cards, AMDs were out of stock and supply of NVIDIAs resumed just recently. The NVIDIA1070 8G was priced at 3,700 yuan, an increase of over 1,000 yuan from two months ago, while NVIDIA1060 was sold for 2,600 yuan, up over 600 yuan during the same period.
"Some buyers made down payments worth over 100,000 yuan and bought all video cards once stock was replenished," said another district vendor.
At the renowned Zhongguancun Dinghao Electronic Mall in Haidian District, prices of video cards also surged, and "some of the most popular cards won't be available until October," according to an employee.
Many types of video cards were unavailable on e-commerce platforms such as JD.com, too.
