How One Cryptocurrency Has Fueled Surge In Hard Drive Manufacturing Stocks

Chia Network (XCH) has pushed up the demand for hard disks due to its “proof of space” mining mechanism in turn driving up shares of hard disk manufacturers, Decrypt reported Thursday.

What Happened: The XCH token, which was launched on May 3, has moved between $561.89 to an all-time high of $1,934.51 it hit on the day of its launch.

At press time, XCH traded 4.73% higher at $1,091.93. XCH traded 2.86% higher against Bitcoin (BTC) and 16.28% higher against Ethereum (ETH).

See Also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

BTC traded 1.42% higher at $39,977.49 at press time, while ETH traded 10.21% lower at $2,656.31. 

Since the token’s launch on May 3, shares of hard disk manufacturers have seen appreciation. Shares of Seagate Technology Holdings Plc STX have risen 7.86% from $91.60 to $98.80, as on Wednesday when they closed 1.59% lower.

Western Digital Corporation WDC shares have risen 1.65% from $70.12 on May 3 to $71.26 on Wednesday when they closed 2.66% lower.

Why It Matters: Chia touts itself as a “green” alternative to “Proof of Work” coins such as Bitcoin in its whitepaper.

This is significant as Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk said last week that he was looking “at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.”

See Also: Elon Musk Gets Schooled By Ethereum Co-Founder On How To Improve Dogecoin

Musk announced that Tesla will stop accepting BTC for payments due to environmental concerns.

While Bitcoin uses processing power to mine, Chia “farmers” allocate 100 GB plots on hard drives which are populated with hashes, noted Decrypt.

As per Decrypt, Chia farmers have been buying high-capacity enterprise-grade hard drives, which is pushing up demand for the storage devices.

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