Bitcoin’s recent price surge has driven up mining equipment costs, with Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei district—a global hub for crypto hardware—seeing a notable 30% price hike.  

According to a report by Wen Wei Po, the price of the Antminer S21 335T, a mining device, has now reached $5,600, or around RMB 40,700, climbing up by 30% compared to last year’s price of $3836.19, which comes to 28,000 RMB. There is even much higher demand for the Antminer S21 XP, a raw mining device with water-cooling facilities, which has continued to cause stockouts on Bitmain’s official website. 

Huaqiangbei merchants report a surge in bulk orders, with buyers from Russia, the U.S., and Canada purchasing hundreds or thousands of units. This demand is driven by Bitcoin’s (BTC) growing price, which has caused mining businesses to become more lucrative even with the inflated costs of equipment. 

Hong Kong has become an important export hub

The 2021 ban on cryptocurrency mining in China resulted in mining machine transactions being redirected through Hong Kong due to Hong Kong’s free-trade environment and ease of logistics. Merchants in Shenzhen said most of the new mining equipment is exported through Hong Kong, capitalizing on its status as a way station for international trade. Cross-border logistics services can deliver mining machines to Hong Kong on the same day, and the machines are then sent to domestic and foreign air and sea transports.

In the $100K to $108K range, BTC mining difficulty reached an all-time high. The mining difficulty adjustment at block height 874,944, around 1:33 UTC on Dec. 16, increased 4.43% and achieved an all-time high of 108.52 trillion, according to TheMinerMag. 

According to data from Hashrate Index, the network’s average hashrate in the last 14 days hit 771 EH/s while the seven-day moving average stood above 800 EH/s. This record hashing difficulty and fall in hash price reflects the macro impact of BTC’s price increase on mining economics. It confirms the claimed hardware shortages and price surges and also provides insight into global competition among miners. Although mining-related activities are explicitly banned in any form by mainland China, the legal framework in Hong Kong permits the sale and export of mining hardware, giving merchants an outlet to satisfy this global demand.