New storage-based cryptocurrency loses half its value on launch day

(Image credit: Pixabay via manseok)

The newest cryptocurrency on the block(chain?), Chia coin (XCH), launched yesterday with an initial price of just under $1,600, but after a brief climb quickly bottomed out at $700. Less than half of its launch price. Maybe, just maybe, the latest cryptocurrency isn't everything it's been hyped up to be.

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In case you've not had your ear to the ground, Chia is a storage-based cryptocurrency, which some feared would lead to a storage shortage in the same way that traditional cryptocurrencies have impacted the availability of graphics cards. And, while large-capacity drives have seen price increases in China as demand has grown, you probably don't need to rush out to buy a massive hard drive before they all vanish just yet.

The fact that the value of the currency is on a downward trend is potentially good news for normal PC gamers, although regardless, the way that Chia works means it wasn't ever really going to impact normal drives much anyway. It needs seriously big hard drives and SSDs to operate efficiently—you're looking at 10TB+ here, so unless Chia reached ridiculous values, the direct impact on 'normal' storage should be minimal.

It's obviously still very early days for Chia, and plenty of long-term investors will be eyeing it up as potentially 'the next big thing', so we wouldn't write it off just yet. But as far as PC gaming is concerned, this is just another cryptocurrency that you can largely ignore.

As Chia was enjoying its first-day teething problems, the crypto of the moment, Ethereum (ETH), however, has continued to smash records, topping out a new high of $3,530. Sorry to say, there probably won't be any let-up in the demand for graphics cards while this current surge continues.

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Alan has been writing about PC tech since before 3D graphics cards existed, and still vividly recalls having to fight with MS-DOS just to get games to load. He fondly remembers the killer combo of a Matrox Millenium and 3dfx Voodoo, and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the first time. He's very glad hardware has advanced as much as it has though, and is particularly happy when putting the latest M.2 NVMe SSDs, AMD processors, and laptops through their paces. He has a long-lasting Magic: The Gathering obsession but limits this to MTG Arena these days.