The new, more energy-saving crypto currency Chia triggered a real hype even before its launch. But if you want to be part of Chia Mining, you have to be quick, because the hard drives required for this are becoming scarce and their prices are rising rapidly.
What is chia mining and why does it make hard drives more expensive?
Whether Bitcoin, Ethereum or Dogecoin – again and again certain crypto currencies not only cause a stir, but also rising prices and delivery bottlenecks for the necessary hardware. So far, graphics cards have been mainly affected, but for Chia Mining it is the hard drives. The reason lies in the different types of prospecting.
Bitcoin and other similar cryptocurrencies rely on the “proof of work” principle to validate transactions. In short, this means that a complex arithmetic task has to be solved in order to generate new blocks. This required computing power has increased many times over in recent years and now consumes as much electricity every year as Sweden, for example. Bitcoin has therefore recently come under fire for its enormous energy consumption.
This is how chia mining works
The crypto currency Chia is said to be more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. As a consensus algorithm, it does not rely on the “Proof of Work”, but rather on a combination of “Proof of Space” and “Proof of Elapsed Time”: You have to wait a certain, randomly defined period of time to append a new block.
In order to generate the block, no arithmetic problem is solved, only hard disk space is required. Cryptographic numbers are then stored in parcels on the memory provided. The more parcels you make available, the greater the reward with Chia Coins. Accordingly, chia mining is also called farming.
If you want to invest in Chia Coins, you should be able to provide a large amount of storage space on an HDD or SDD and also have sufficient RAM. The larger hard drives with 4 to 18 terabytes are particularly popular. The increased demand is already noticeable with a rise in prices.
If an SSD is used in Chia Minning instead of an HDD, it should be borne in mind that Chia Mining puts more stress on the SSD than conventional use. A commercially available SSD is not designed for the data write volume of Chia Mining and could therefore lose its write performance or become inoperable more quickly. It must therefore be expected that this will aggravate the delivery situation again.
How will Chia Mining develop?
It cannot be ruled out that the price of hard drives will rise sharply in the near future or that certain models will be sold out. A comparison can be made with the Bitcoin boom, when graphics cards suddenly became a lot more expensive and were not available for weeks. We can already see the first signs of this development in Asia. For example, the price of certain hard drives in Hong Kong has already tripled. In our house, too, getting the hard drives is becoming more and more difficult and, due to the shortage, more expensive.
Cryptocurrencies are volatile and which of them will prove to be a successful investment in the long term cannot be assessed today. On the other hand, it is already clear that a new hype is coming with the launch of Chia. Anyone who is interested in cryptocurrencies like Chia and is not afraid of the risk is best advised to take care of the required hardware early on.
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