Bitcoin surges, mining cards make a comeback? Graphics card manufacturers: We can’t afford it anymore

Influenced by Facebook's launch of a new cryptocurrency, GlobalCoin, the price of Bitcoin has soared in recent days, once rising to $9,300, setting a 13-month high. It seems that the digital currency market will soon regain its former glory.

The surge in Bitcoin prices also led to a surge in mining card concept stocks. Recently, the share prices of companies related to graphics cards in the Taiwan stock market have soared for several consecutive days. Among them, Qingyun Technology rose 4% today, Leadtek Technology rose 2%, Gigabyte's share price rose 5%, MSI also rose 2%, and Auxiliary Technology Co., Ltd. soared 6%.

But can the mining card market really make a comeback? Graphics card manufacturers are not optimistic about this. TUF is a typical example in the past two years. When the mining card market was hot, 90% of TUF's graphics card business revenue came from mining-related products. However, after the mining card market collapsed, related revenue plummeted, resulting in serious inventory backlogs.

Chen Jianwei, general manager of Hanxun, recently expressed pessimism about the resurgence of the mining card market in an interview. He believes that after the mining disaster in the second half of 2018, graphics card manufacturers are still digesting their inventory. Both AMD and NVIDIA have graphics card chip inventory. Even if these inventories are digested, there are still many second-hand mining cards on the market, which still need to be digested by manufacturers.

Even if these inventory problems are solved and the mining card market heats up, considering the painful experience of manufacturers digesting inventory last year, manufacturers in the industry will not rush to follow suit.

However, Chen Jianwei's statement on mining cards still left some suspense. He believed that whether the market demand for mining cards would re-emerge would not be clear until the fourth quarter of 2019, implying that if digital currencies continue to rise sharply, mining cards will still be an important opportunity. After all, the inventory of graphics card manufacturers was completely resolved by the end of 2019.