The Popularity of Chia Has Led to an Increase in Demand for Hard Drives

According to research firm Context, the launch of the Chia cryptocurrency has led to a sharp increase in demand for hard drives in the European market. Data for April shows 200,000 enterprise-grade drives of 10TB and above were sold to users, up 240% from the same month in 2020. Consumer NAS sold nearly 250,000 units, up 167% from a year earlier.

The explosive growth in market sales is best explained by the launch of the Chia cryptocurrency, which uses a proof of space rather than a proof of work system. The user allocates an amount of memory on their computers, and the software assigns a unique number to each section of this space.

When the currency network needs to confirm a new transaction, it chooses one of these unique numbers at random, and the computer that owns the segment verifies the transaction. This model not only makes Chia greener, but also more affordable, analysts said, as most users have unused storage space on their devices. However, Chia has already found opponents who argue that the network significantly wears out hard drives and, therefore, leads to a new round of "electronic pollution" (e-waste).

Image: Market Realist