Semiconductor Chips & the upcoming Collision with Crypto

There appears to be a Event Horizon occurring in the semiconductor market place that is affecting everything that has technology in the world. Computers, laptops, Smart phones, Gaming consoles, hard drives, and yes, cars, trucks, satellites and the adjunct services provided by most of them, the internet.. and as an aside, the Crypto marketplace The Semiconductor shortage is affecting all of them.

Chip Shortages are affecting entire Industries, even I didn't think of the cause & effect of it all, till I did the research. But think about it, when all of the major car manufacturers stop or cut production lines because of chip shortages, what happens to the suppliers of the metal, plastic, rubber and glass that also go into them. Those businesses also grind to a halt ( and of course that also applies to their suppliers of raw material...) and on it goes.

As an additional example, many of these chips are produced in Taiwan - a small country that accounts for nearly two-thirds of the global semiconductor industry. This is a major supply risk factor considering China has been threatening to invade which would certainly upset the critical supply source. another problem they are having, is a shortage of supply of fresh water that is needed for chip manufacturing. A localized drought in central Taiwan may soon further upset DRAM production.

So how does this affect Crypto? Cryptocurrency miners love graphics cards and computer chips. Chip makers aren’t returning the love. Prices of bitcoin and ether have rallied more than tenfold in the past year. That could translate into big sales for chip companies powering the cryptocurrency mining rigs.
But the global chip shortage means semiconductor foundries like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are already scrambling to fill other orders. They are also cautious about adding new capacity given how finicky crypto demand has proven to be.

The semiconductor industry has already been struggling with supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the winter storm in Texas, and fires at factory sites. But Bitcoin mining is putting even more pressure on the chip market, creating an additional shortage and boosting the price of chips.

On top of all that, It’s reported that if the new Chia cryptocurrency takes off, the PC industry and gamers may have to grapple with a shortage of storage, as inventory of hard disk drives and solid-state drives could quickly become depleted. Although still not fully available to all, it has already led to bulk buying and mass procurement of enterprise-level storage at the point of manufacture in the east. From comparative custom-made storage to vast pre-ordering of enterprise-level SSD to facilitate the performance required in Chia, this has severely impacted the availability of a vast amount of enterprise-level SSD, as well as enterprise hard drives and commercial SSD.

In February, lead times—the duration between when an order for a chip is placed and when it actually gets filled—stretched to 15 weeks on average for the first time since data collection started in 2017, according to industry distributor data, lead times for Broadcom Inc.—a barometer for the industry because of its involvement across the supply chain—extended to 22.2 weeks, up from 12.2 weeks in February 2020. If the costs for mining go up, does that affect the cost supply chain to the end users? After all who sets the prices we are charged for Crypto transactions.

I guess I'm thinking that if China, who has the most amount of Bitcoin miners, and they are thinking of invading Taiwan, has the chip shortage pushed the need for them to do it? your thoughts?

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