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Not to wait for the video card mine disaster of the game players, in 618 launched a counterattack against scalpers

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It is no longer necessary to state how hot the digital currency market was in the first half of the year. Graphics cards, which can be used to explore for digital currency, have also been affected by the move.

Game players who can't wait for the video card mine disaster fight back against scalpers in 618

Originally written by Lushark, Game Research Society

A battle to exterminate scalpers.

It is no longer necessary to state how hot the digital currency market was in the first half of the year. From the market value of Bitcoin and ETH, the mainstream currencies, to Dogecoin and Shitecoin, these "MEME coins" have soared more than ten times overnight, the scene can only be described as crazy.

Available to the exploration of digital currency (commonly known as the "dig") graphics is also influenced by this trend, we had the article he recorded the magic card market: April from low-end to high-end almost all graphics for prices soared, with three or four years of video card can sell the original price, 30 is a graphics card is prices doubled in six months.

Some people are happy and some people worry, in the hands of the arms of the graphics card players are smiling to see the rise, had a wait-and-see attitude to want to be reduced to start with the "and so on the party", can only have bitter words, looking forward to the digital currency cooling, along with the graphics card price - that is, commonly known as the "mine".

1. The 'Mine Accident' That Can't Wait

Happened in 2013 and 2018, when the digital currency market bubble burst, "dig" earnings will collapse, "miners" will be keen to hand a large number of high-priced buy video card, dealers will also release of hoarding graphics card, the resulting video card price high crash, this phenomenon is called "mine".

When the "mining accident" occurred in 2018, the 20-series graphics cards quickly fell below the official guideline price, and so on. Party members only need to watch out for "slag" cards disguised as "95 new for girls" and "Internet cafe second-hand", and it is not difficult to pick up bargains.

Graphics cards that have been used for a long time to "mine" and then are refurbished and returned to the market are called "slag"

Finally, an "avalanche" of digital currencies hit in late May, when the market value of Bitcoin and ETH halved and a large number of speculators exploded their positions overnight.

But this time, the "mine accident" that so many other parties had been waiting for did not come as expected.

One month has passed, and the digital currency market as a whole continues to trend downward; The newly listed graphics card is also more for "mining" behavior lock computing power, limited mining income; "Mining" and trading activities have also been repeatedly hit in China, large mines have closed down...

Some mining software even had negative returns at one point

With all this beleaguered, the price of graphics cards should fall anyway. In fact, the graphics card market has cooled a bit, with prices falling - but only a little. Today, the market price of 30 series graphics cards is still more than 2 times higher than the original official price, and there is no intention of repeating the "mining accident" in those years.

Obviously how to look at the inevitable "mine disaster", how did it happen to stand still not to come?

On the one hand, is the wave of "mining boom, with all kinds of small white mining software and the popularity of" cloud to calculate force "rental platform, a lot of soho" miners "join them, they had only a few graphics card, no special equipment" dig ", but can still own computer into it to earn some money, so although the larger "mines" affected by the policy was shut down, Plenty of "little miners" are still active.

After years of accumulation, even if a digital currency halves in value, it is still high relative to the physical currency, and the income from daily "mining" is easy to cover electricity and labor costs. So not only those who entered the market early have already made a net profit, but the "miners" who came late are still expected to make a stable return. Naturally, they are no longer in a hurry to sell their graphics cards, and a few are even buying cards in preparation for the next uptick, when it's unclear when.

After the avalanche night, ETH's overall network did manage to drop a bit, but it was not noticeable even after several big mines were shut down, meaning that most miners were still holding on

On the other hand, since market prices haven't collapsed as a result of the digital currency crash, graphics card manufacturers and distributors are clearly happy to maintain a seller's market. Manufacturers in the electricity business released the original price graphics card is often thousands of cards hundreds of thousands of people grab, so was angrily denounced as "monkey"; Dealers sell graphics cards at a multiples premium or bundled with other accessories in a "buy it or not" attitude. In the secondary market, scalpers, dealers and "miners" are still bidding up the price of cards... It can be said that the formation of "do not let a cheap graphics card into the hands of the general players" of the encirclemency.

Gamers have long struggled with the price of graphics cards.

2. "The original price of the card, understand (those) understand"

The approach of 618 promotion has become the fuse for the outbreak of contradictions.

Originally looking forward to graphics card to take the opportunity to a wave of price reduction of the people not only did not wait to the original price card, but also helplessly looking at the premium of one thousand or two thousand graphics card claiming to be "conscience price", can only be resentful to ridicule profiteers this is "tears earn three thousand". Even more infuriating is the fact that some people get these cards at a relatively low price, but the seller holds off on delivering them, citing shortages, until the order expires.

To this end, the seller only need to pay a small hundreds of liquidated damages, the buyers who participate in the jostling can be played a monkey.

Infuriated buyers began to find the open live dealers to conduct, the response is still that "market so, you'll get premium, the original price to sell at a loss", some dealers has even started into the provocative mocking want to buy cheap card game players, claimed that would never let the card price cut, "spread" and so on party were soon disillusioned.

Businessmen "sweat soyabeans" expression pulled full of sarcasm

Such arrogance, finally let those who just want to improve their own game experience and so on party unbearable, no longer wait for harvest, but take the initiative to attack.

Some graphics card related QQ group began to be organized to disrupt the action of the scalper market, the start of the outpost.

For a while, the fish appeared on a large number of selling at the original price of all kinds of graphics card sellers, and everyone has a story: some "people in Mongolia, just off the plane", some "miner friend was caught, tearful selling", and "trapped abroad, graphics card for air ticket money"...... What they have in common is that the description of the product says, "Everyone knows what they know."

The stereotypes written by netizens are going further and further awry

Obviously, this is all false news posted by our friends. The campaign quickly spread to video card bars, Douyin, B Station, Zhihu and other video card-related corners, and attracted more and more people to join in, allowing the "Know-Know" card to surpass Nvidia and AMD and occupy the used video card market.

It may seem like a collective performance art, but the effect is real.

First of all, the invalid information flooding the market makes the information of scalpers selling cards at high prices scattered, which is not easy to be retrieved, and the shipping channels blocked; It also sends a "mining disaster" signal to the market as a whole -- even those who don't understand the "know it all" code may hesitate to buy premium cards when they see so many discount cards. Meet the unknown market by mistake of the small white, the posters will not only cancel the transaction refund, but also to dissuade them from buying scalpers card, draw consumers to boycott the business people sitting up the behavior of the price.

"You don't buy, I don't buy, tomorrow can still drop 200" gradually became the program and slogan of this action.

In the early days of the campaign, some scalpers and "miners" who would have been on the xianyu constantly sweep goods and buy second-hand cards sold by players were overjoyed to see the sudden emergence of so many low-priced cards in the market and rushed to snap them up without looking at the description of the goods.

Sellers were delighted to discover that the culprits responsible for high graphics card prices had caught themselves. They do the same thing for each other: they squeeze money out of each other by delaying deliveries and not processing refund requests for the same reasons after payment has been made.

In the past few days, the secondary market for graphics cards has nearly shut down, finally making some scalpers and dealers restless. Some of them threatened to post that such behavior is disturbing the market, suspected of illegal; Some began to sell miserily beg for mercy, want to lead players to vent their anger on the graphics card manufacturers; Some have fomented dissentations, saying that many of the participants are players who sold their graphics cards at high prices and now want to short the card price to profit; Of course, also not a little angry and direct abuse.

This overloaded polemic became a model of provocation

这些回应反而让大家深信这场「懂得都懂」行动确实逼急了那些黄牛和经销商们，进一步加大了力度。活动声势越来越浩大，许多原本单纯看热闹并不关心显卡的人也加入其中。毕竟对于参与者而言，最大的风险也不过是被闲鱼平台限制账号的使用，而显卡价格如果真的因此下跌，那么对于消费者总归是好事一桩。

Of course, there are also people with consumer identity against such interference in the behavior of second-hand transactions, but the result was found to have been involved in the reselling of the "small scalping cattle", but attracted big happy people

Although the initial victory, but we also know: for the second-hand market disturbance is at most a breakthrough in the moat, can only hit the bottom of the small scalper and dealers, for the upper and middle sellers or scratch the surface.

Everyone began to move on to the next decisive battle.

3. A roundabout head-to-head showdown

Compared with second-hand trading platforms such as Xianyu, e-commerce platforms are the main sales of the online video card market after all. And so on, the party is trying to mess with the online dealer stores that sell premium cards.

For example, "just look, not buy", increasing the cost of soliciting customers for those who have bought advertising space.

Or it is the use of the "order after a certain period of time even if the payment will lock the seller's inventory" this mechanism, shoot up all the inventory of the merchant graphics card, wait until the order time out to shoot again, repeat, so that it can not be normal sales, it is called human flesh DDoS attack.

This method is known as the "lock sheet"

比起随手点击消耗广告流量，「锁单」大法虽说要麻烦一些，效果却是立杆见影。一些遭到集中爆破的网店运营近乎瘫痪，只能给锁单的买家们发消息求饶甚至辱骂。

That's exactly what buyers want, as players who have long been the only game in town are finally getting a taste of the nasty business. In the face of harassment, they even came up with a way to "drive away the tiger and eat the Wolf" -- changing their contact information to other video card vendors.

With the development of the situation, the platform and the merchants also offered countermeasures: the initial can last 24 hours of lockup time shrank again, only a few dozen minutes; Shoppers limit the number of items they can buy, placing orders one by one to lock out their inventory. Customer service also launched a tug of war with buyers, you beat empty inventory on my side to add inventory, depending on who is more idle hands faster.

So some players are taking the more radical approach of actually paying for the premium graphics cards and then returning them for a refund when they are delivered. Graphics card bar someone released their own spend 1.24 million yuan to buy 50 3090 graphics card and refused to accept the return of screenshots, the effect can be called "return flow" cool article. Friends of the bar are encouraged by the news, even if it's hard to prove.

A few days after placing a payment order, the bar friend posted a record of rejection and refund.

This method actually "locks" the inventory of the merchant, but it also costs to implement, so it is difficult to popularize. In contrast, there is no risk of the lock sheet Dafa is still the most mainstream boycott in this activity, we still have something to do nothing to lock a few sheets, can give businesses how much trouble is how much trouble.

Netizens centered on the video card bar also made posters to circulate, calling on people to boycott premium cards. Every time someone posted a question asking whether the 618 discount price is enough, they received only the original quotation.

"Never forget the original price"

The night of 618 finally came, and the old friends in the group were in full swing, determined to lock up all the premium card inventory in the first time, preventing others from buying.

But we soon found that the action is not as expected in the smooth - although still higher than the original price of one thousand or two thousand yuan, but the early morning release of these graphics cards or cheaper than the market price, instant was snapped up, simply can not catch up with the lock order.

At this time the video card bar is full of "mountain paste" flooded, called for boycott of the post has sunk to the first few pages to go.

The scramble for the limited number of cards is a trick of the "monkey", so to get these cards is called "downhill"

只有极少数人成功贯彻了行动纲领，拍到限量显卡后毅然退货。

In the reply, another person begged him to increase the price of the transfer.

"We agreed to wait for the original price together, the result is a few thousand expensive you will go down the mountain", such a scene will inevitably let just also lofty sentiments to let this night become the "return of goods night" group of friends down.

In the decisive battle on which so much was expected, the waiters failed to wait for the fruits of victory.

4. Changes to come

Graphics card bar was once a community with "not bad money" atmosphere known, with "three thousand budget into card, add money to ninety-eight thousand" the name of the meme, now has become the center of this dissuade activity, visible premium graphics card has indeed reached the point of anger.

The battle between the waiters and the graphics card merchants is reminiscent of the one that took place earlier this year in the United States when retail investors rounded up Wall Street shorts: the same long-scoffed "chives" rebelled, and the same capital-favored party got a taste of the punches.

The "return night" didn't work out as expected, but the fight didn't end there.

"Know all know" card graphics card still occupies the relevant search of idle fish; There are still people tirelessly through the lockup order and return order to the dealers to frustrate; More and more people know "you don't buy I don't buy, tomorrow also can drop 200" slogan, among them naturally someone will be persuaded, join the ranks of the party and so on.

No one is sure whether these countermeasures will work, and there are so many factors influencing the price of graphics cards these days: will a mining accident ever happen? How much impact will the epidemic have on graphics card production? Will a new generation of graphics cards arrive? When will the next hardware upgrade like Cyberpunk 2077 come?

The supply and demand of the graphics card market is far more complex than that of other hardware, and gamers have no real means to fight back. All they can do is hold onto their wallets, refuse to buy premium products, and wait for prices to fall.

While the impact on the graphics card market is unclear, the campaign has been successful in enlighting other groups that have been plagued by scalpers -- on Xianyu, the "Know-it-All" PS5 version is now gradually overrunning searches.