Media: Russian miners sell off equipment to return investments

What’s new? Amid the instability of the cryptocurrency market, Russian miners are actively selling off equipment to return funds invested in the business. As the interlocutors of Rossiyskaya Gazeta noted, the profits of individuals and small cryptocurrency mining companies decreased significantly, while large players, having more resources, retained opportunities for work and development.

Information on the website of Rossiyskaya Gazeta

What do industry representatives say? Igor Runets, CEO of BitRiver, a data center operator, noted that the cost of video cards decreased by another 10-15% compared to June, when miners started to sell them en masse. He added that the decline in the cost of equipment allowed BitRiver to step up investment activities and open a new data center in Ust-Ilimsk.

How do miners sell off equipment? According to Evgeny Kharitonov, editor-in-chief of Ferra.ru, individuals and small mining companies are selling devices on Wildberries and Avito. Some industry participants are trying to return previously purchased graphics cards to hardware retailers. Citilink told of a case where a customer wanted to return allegedly faulty equipment worth 10 million rubles — more than 500 graphics cards. Kharitonov noted:

“Further graphics card prices in Russia depend on the stability of supply — right now, currency fluctuations have not led to an increase in the price of graphics cards due to oversaturation of the market.”

At the end of June, Arcane Research analyst Jaran Mellerud noted that the decline in profits from cryptocurrency mining may force companies to sell ASIC miners, which would bring down their prices, which are already at their lowest for a year and a half, even more.

Bloomberg reported that a number of mining companies were having trouble paying back loans totaling about $4 billion. The reason was the prolonged decline in the bitcoin exchange rate. The number of loans at risk of default is growing as the value of many of the cryptocurrency mining rigs accepted by lenders as collateral has halved.