The cryptocurrency world is penetrating deeper into our everyday life, with its influence found in unexpected spheres. A possible shortage of hard drives is one of such examples. Surprisingly, this shortage in the HDD market may be caused by a new cryptocurrency, ChiaCoin. Its popularity in China has already spurred the demand for hard drives. Currently, Chinese crypto miners are buying up HDDs and SSDs ranging from 4TB to 18TB that have already spiked in price. The new cryptocurrency was created by Bram Cohen who is best known for developing BitTorrent. Despite being a newcomer to the market, ChiaCoin is considered a rather promising asset. Although it is prohibited for trading in China, miners have already started to purchase the equipment beforehand. Given the large scale and density of the mining activity in China, the domestic market will face the HDD deficit first, and then the international market may follow. The popularity of cryptocurrency mining such as bitcoin may threaten Beijing’s target to curb emissions. Notably, China accounts for 75% of the world’s total mining activity. Last year, China’s President Xi Jinping declared that the country was aiming “to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.” However, this plan can be thwarted by uncontrolled mining.
