Right now, the major news worldwide is the plummeting value of Bitcoin. This decline seems to have no end in sight. While investors scramble to sell their cryptocurrency or hold on for dear life, hardware manufacturers face crisis. They are also taking a hit.

Last year, optimism in the crypto industry led manufacturers to expect big profits. They produced excess graphics cards and motherboards in response. Unfortunately, that optimism has turned to pessimism. Now, these manufacturers are left holding the bag.

Gigabyte and Asus are struggling to sell their excess hardware stock. This is partly due to dwindling interest in mining and virtual currencies.

Taiwanese manufacturers were misled by the temporary crypto market boom. At the start of the year, they increased mining hardware production. However, interest in new mining hardware has dropped sharply. Miners no longer prioritize buying new equipment.

Ongoing complications from the US-China trade war and a sudden cryptocurrency price dip have cooled interest further.

Crypto Slump Hits Hardware Makers

Earning reports from both companies have painted a grim picture of how terribly they have been hit by a slump in cryptocurrency prices. “Asus saw a 43 percent drop in earnings in Q3 compared to last year, and Gigabyte recorded its lowest quarterly level since 2008.” MSI, which posted a “6.6 percent loss for Q3 year-over-year,” appears to be the only hardware manufacturer that is doing okay.

The surplus in hardware is not only limited to manufacturers in Taiwan.

In a recent report, Nvidia announced that the sale of its graphics card has suffered a huge decline. So severe was the loss that it led the company to cut all ties with the mining business. As Collette Kress, the CFO of Nvidia, puts it: “We believe we have reached a normal period as we are looking forward to essentially no cryptocurrency as we move forward.”

AMD is currently in the middle of a push to offload its mining hardware. The company launched a “promotional explainer page” recently to “familiarize people with the various use cases and applications for blockchain.” Only time will tell if the project will be successful.

In conclusion

Thanks to the loss of interest in cryptocurrency and mining, hardware manufacturers face crisis as Asus and Gigabyte have been left with tons of excess mining hardware, which they are struggling to offload. This has led Asus to record a 43 percent drop in its Q3 earnings compared to last year, while Gigabyte saw its lowest quarterly level since 2008.

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