Mining mystery: when halving prices encounter epidemics

Source / Chain Catcher

Author / Wang Dashu

Unauthorized, declined to reprint

Under the epidemic, there was an egg, and mining, the only physical industry in the blockchain, suffered a lot. Delayed resumption, suspension, and sales brought a series of chain reactions in the industrial chain. We merchants, dealers, or reselling computing power or anchoring overseas markets, only the mines and small miners who completed the heavy storage a year ago were relatively comfortable, but mixed with the uncertainty of currency price fluctuations caused by halving, They also have their own thoughts, but each has its own difficulties.

01

Impact production and sales

"In view of the serious epidemic situation, the start date is expected, during which time partners can find part-time jobs by themselves." This is February 2nd, the sales company Lu Yuan, who is based in SEG, was notified by the company in the work group. At present, the sales of mining machinery are mostly at home, and some of them have opened sideline businesses. For example, Lu Yuan, who has recently engaged in masks and selling beer in the circle of friends, has evolved into a micro-business.

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The picture shows Lu Yuan's transformation of WeChat to sell goods

In fact, due to the gradual decline of the bitcoin market in the second half of 2019, the sales commission was once changed from the percentage system to the unit price. The new machine commission was 50-100 yuan, and the second mobile phone was as low as 5 yuan. At that time, Lu Yuan had to chase behind the customer's buttocks every day, and sometimes offered to offer.

It wasn't until around December that the price of the currency picked up, and the number of customers who actively consulted and purchased began to increase.

"In the last two months of the year, the overall revenue was much better than before. However, since the manufacturers have not delivered new phones recently, they are still focusing on the second-most mobile phones. Taiwan, and I not only sell and collect, I can earn several hands in the middle. "Lu Yuan told the chain catcher, in fact, he planned to start vacation on New Year's Day," come back early after the year, wait for the market to rise, new machine delivery, Earn more commission. "Right now he's got good prospects.

The market was on schedule, and the epidemic continued.

Lu Yuan revealed that there is no basic salary during the sales period. If the sales commission can be sold, it will increase by 50% on the original basis. However, it is still difficult to improve the performance. " In addition to the delay in logistics affected by the epidemic, the upcoming halving has also made most customers more cautious, so they have basically not been able to sell. " His tone was mixed with a little helplessness.

In fact, the halving of Bitcoin before the epidemic was the focus of much attention. "Bitcoin is halved every 4 years and it is written in the code like the constitution. There is no uncertainty in itself. The variables are generated by people's expectations of it." Means.

In his opinion, the number of halvings in the first two times were 25 and 12.5 respectively. This time, 6.25 were relatively small and the total amount of bitcoin was larger than the previous two. Therefore, some miners believe that the halving in 2020 will not Large fluctuations in the price of the currency. The starting point of the bulls is to assume that the new daily demand for bitcoin will remain unchanged, and the number of bitcoins produced per block will decrease by 6.25. Supply is less than demand, and the currency price may rise sharply.

In addition, in view of the halving, the inflation rate of Bitcoin will be reduced to 1.8%, which is lower than the target inflation rate of 2% of the US dollar, which is likely to attract various types of funds from around the world to enter the storage value, thereby indirectly raising prices.

In fact, bullishness must be analyzed by combining various factors. It is very difficult to predict which factors play a leading role. The only constant is that once the price of the currency plummets, there will be a large number of miners selling machines and coins.

After all, mining is an investment that is directly linked to the currency price. When the currency price rises, the chicken and dog rise to the sky, and vice versa. Sales Lu Yuan knows where the opportunity lies. He was optimistic about halving. Many friends who had been in operation and maintenance have worked alone one year ago. Therefore, he prefers to spend time on business rather than accept the former mine owner to invite him Good intentions for operation and maintenance, because sales in his mind can be expected in the future, operation and maintenance is full of ceiling.

However, after the epidemic, everyone's judgment on halving has changed.

"At the end of January, the S9, which had been completely shut down, was up and running again, and the computing power of the entire network skyrocketed. However, due to the outbreak affecting the production capacity and transportation of mining machine manufacturers, the computing power will not skyrocket in the short term. Under the difficulty, the miners are benefiting, and the profits are also very considerable, "said Mint, founder of Wonderful Mining.

Mint was an early participant in the Bitcoin community, catching up with the highest price of bitcoin after halving for the first time in 2013. At that time, BTC was nearly 1,200 US dollars / piece, and later witnessed the market after halving in July 2016. BTC She had reached USD 20,000 / piece in February of the following year. This is the third halving this year, and she feels a lot.

"Different from 13 years, at that time, miners could still affect the BTC price to a certain extent, but since the development of the mining circle, the volume of the futures market has doubled, and capital has been deeply involved in the secondary market. According to her, many senior miners have been hoarding bitcoins and miners since the end of last year, but some miners have also waited and waited to not increase their positions, but now it is difficult to increase their positions.

Imagine that if there is no epidemic, those miners who have wait-and-see attitude may be the customers Lu Yuan is thinking about.

02

Popular computing power, mining financialization

"Out: Inner Mongolia Mine's cutting power E12-44T. It is available throughout the year and half a year, and can be staged." It is Ling Yan's ad content that reposts peers' selling power.

Compared with Lu Yuan who has been in the industry for three years, the newcomer Ling Yan is relatively anxious. "I am a mining machine sales company that was only made in the second half of 2019. The performance has just improved for two months and I was blocked by the epidemic at home. It is really annoying." However, She still sends out screenshots of quotes in the circle of friends every day, to maintain intentional customers, and sometimes forward advertisements of peers who sell computing power, both to prepare for resumption of work and to take chances.

This kind of computing power is that a mine or miner (some manufacturers and distributors also have their own mines) cuts out a portion of the computing power generated by their own mines and sells them to people in need, which is equivalent to bundling sales of mining machines and operation and maintenance. Buyers earn coins during the signing period and acquire machine ownership after the expiration. Buyers are generally senior miners who want to hoard a large amount of computing power and are very familiar with the industry.

Ling Yan told the chain catcher that the cutting power is now a more popular "product", which can avoid the obstacle of logistics, and the buyer gets a profit on the day. For example, Bitmain also recently launched a platform dedicated to selling computing power.

In addition to selling the computing power of mining machines, cloud computing power sales are also relatively active. Buying cloud computing power is equivalent to leasing someone else's mining machine for mining. The buyer earns money during the contract period, and the ownership of the mining machine is returned to the seller after the contract period. It is not cost-effective in terms of physical computing power.

Computing power and cloud computing power, as mining financial derivatives, have more uncertain factors than physical mining machines, and have not been widely recognized before. The popular reason is mainly that they are not physical and are not subject to logistics restrictions. For the present.

In Mint's view, if the investment risk is abandoned, and from the perspective of industrial evolution alone, the popularity of computing power trading implies the trend of industrial financialization to a certain extent. "As the bitcoin price becomes more stable, many mining companies have begun to deploy cloud computing power, mining pools and other industrial chains. In August last year, PayPal and Avalon jointly launched a financial service of 0 yuan to purchase mining machines. Renrenbit and Matrixport are also providing similar financial services. "

In addition, she also predicted that the mining industry would be shuffled in half and usher in the seller's market, but only if the manufacturers successfully delivered capacity to the market, which seemed a bit difficult under the epidemic.

The halving is a question of whether the manufacturer can seize the opportunity, and the current problem is the stagnation of production and sales. Delayed resumption of work has left a series of links such as material procurement, organization of production, sales, transportation, and after-sales required for mining machine production. Although it is not as big as all the traditional industries such as catering and tourism, if the epidemic continues, the revenue will be difficult, and the internal consumption will be difficult.

A few days ago, mining machine manufacturers Bitmain, Jianan Yunzhi, and Shenma Mining Machinery all announced to postpone the production and delivery and after-sale arrangements and services of mining machines. Futures are still on sale and customer service is still online. However, recently, Avalon's official website showed that Avalon 1066 was on sale and was shipped by SF. Some buyers told the chain catcher that they would buy 10 SFs to the Sichuan mine. The shipping cost was 1,600 yuan, which was about three times the usual rate.

03

The mine as a whole stabilized, and a small part of it shut down

In addition to manufacturers, dealers are naturally affected to some extent. Some have resale computing power, while others rely on overseas markets. Some have no storage stagnation, and some have inventory concerns about objective costs.

Among them, Lu Yuan's company chose to resell overseas, and 10,000 L3 + 2 mobile phones were collected at a unit price of 120 yuan a year ago and sent to the Moscow office. They are now being shipped at a market price of 550 yuan per unit, making nearly 4 times. He jokingly said that this is different from dealers who resell computing power. The overseas market needs an early and long-term layout, and the required costs and resources are not a small number.

Under the epidemic situation, we should think about our own way and find a way out. The mines in operation are hardly affected compared with production and sales.

Before being interviewed by Chain Catcher, Mint had just returned from the mine. She joked that she was going to chat with the operation and maintenance brothers. "We have new machines on the shelves after the year, and most of our operation and maintenance colleagues have never rested during the Spring Festival. It is very hard. Although the epidemic has not affected us yet, I still talk to them regularly, and I care and sympathize regularly, so I can be generous heart."

The picture shows the new machine on the wonderful mine

Chinese mines account for 70% of the world's total, mainly concentrated in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu and other places. Generally, they are located in remote and sparsely populated areas with limited personnel mobility. The mines where most of the Uyghurs are on vacation will be affected, and others are running smoothly. Miner Lao Chen said that compared to the currency price, the impact of the epidemic on the mine was relatively small.

However, Jiang Zhuoer said on Weibo a few days ago that the frontline situation of the mine is quite bad, traffic and materials in various places are cut off, people cannot move, and enterprises cannot resume work. Among them, Xinjiang is the most exaggerated, and it needs to be isolated for 20 days.

F2Pool COO also revealed during the live broadcast of Liyun Finance that some local mines were shut down directly, and operations and maintenance personnel were retired. In some places, they were unable to enter and some were overkill. According to his calculations, if there is no epidemic, there will be a 20-day difference between the post-holiday time and the post-holiday time, but it is very likely that it will be postponed until March before the new time. This is bad news for miners who want to enter or add investment now, but there are cloud computing power to consider, or directly invest in the secondary market.

In fact, apart from the situation mentioned by the two industry KOLs mentioned above, the development of the mine in the short term does not fluctuate too much, and it can maintain stability. However, under the epidemic, the stock market fell sharply in the beginning of the year, and Bitcoin's rising market may continue to attract the attention of external fund holders.

But as an early participant, Mint didn't want Bitcoin to go out in this way, because in her cognition, the outbreak of fintech products such as Bitcoin, blockchain, and digital assets has to wait until people truly recognize its It only makes sense when it works, if not, it's just speculation time and time again.

A senior industry insider believes that the mining industry will focus on computing power in the future. The extension of computing power may break the structural ceiling of the industry and turn speculators into real users. He said, "The mine is the basic support. Conservative development can support a company to drive employment. Radical development can be combined with computing power products for finance or transformation into a data center. In the future, it can also try to meet the needs of data such as smart cities. The mining pool is the core target of the long-term layout of miners and mines, because mining needs to shape an exit that can constantly generate users. "

Although the internal and external problems of the mining industry have emerged endlessly under the epidemic, this is also a good time for reflection. After all, whether in the mining or blockchain industry, or even in all walks of life, history should be used as a mirror, epidemics as a warning, and the existence and evolution of future uncontrollable variables.

(At the request of the interviewee, Lu Yuan and Ling Yan are pseudonymized in the text)

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