Chinese Miners Are Selling Off Their Mining GPUs in the Reseller Market

A massive sell-off of cryptocurrency mining GPUs has been reported among Chinese miners, and they are observed to be selling them at significantly low prices. Non-profitability of cryptocurrency mining has been identified as the main reason for this development. According to reports, NVIDIA RTX 3080 is being sold for as low as $500 in the reseller markets.

Images of used GPUs being sold in the second-hand market have flooded crypto Twitter in recent times. According to a Twitter user who displayed images of used GPUs, RTX 3060 Ti’s were going for as low as $300 to $350 on some of the marketplaces. This shows a waning interest in cryptocurrency mining suspected to be motivated by both the dropping prices of crypto, and increasing regulatory challenges.

While buyers appear to be picking up the GPUs at these significantly low prices, there are questions as to whether they are getting good bargains. No doubt, the equipment is going for prices that may not have been expected, however, whether they can return value for money is another question.

The majority of users picking up these graphic cards appear to be gamers who intend to use them for heavy-duty gaming exercises. In their prime states, these graphic cards would produce optimum performance. However, the conditions surrounding mining activities and the stress that the graphic cards may have lived through puts their expected performance in doubt.

Naturally, used items are expected to come with wear and tear. The circumstances surrounding graphic cards that have been deployed for cryptocurrency mining even escalate their wear and tear conditions the more. As parts of cryptocurrency mining rigs, graphic cards are exposed to constant heavy loads, high voltages, and high temperatures. Unless during maintenance periods, graphic cards under such setups do not rest and their parts must have been stressed.

Already, there have been complaints by several gamers on social media concerning these used graphic cards. They regard them as “having been abused” through the cryptocurrency mining process. Some of the buyers report being compelled to replace parts of the graphic cards, while others complain of experiencing heating issues with their purchases.

One Twitter user firmly advised against buying such used graphic cards, noting that they have been on all their lives, therefore they must be worn out. Perhaps out of anger or disappointment, he claims that buying post-mining GPUs would simply help the miners to recoup some of their losses during the mining exercise.

On the other hand, a pro-sellers opinion has debunked the criticism of users over the used GPUs flooding the market. One user who believes that the critics of used graphic cards are the makers of new ones who are afraid of losing a share of the market explained why used GPUs aren’t as bad as claimed.

On his Twitter handle, the user explained that the factors that could damage GPUs are high voltage and thermal expansion. Based on this, he argued that GPUs used for Ethereum mining were typically undervolted, making them to use as little electricity as possible. This eliminates the issue of voltage degradation on such GPUs. Also, he argued that constant cooling and minimal load spikes ensure that the temperature fluctuations of such GPUs are minimal. This protects them from thermal expansion.

While the argument continues, with both sides making effort to prove their points, buyers have been encouraged to make purchases from marketplaces with buyer protection.