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Bram Cohen’s Chia Drives Hard Disk Demand in Europe: Report

Research by Context shows just under 200,000 enterprise-grade nearline storage devices of 10TB capacity were sold to end-users in Europe this April.

Updated Sep 14, 2021, 1:08 p.m. Published Jun 9, 2021, 4:14 p.m.

The debut of the cryptocurrency Chia has generated a surge in demand for hard disk drives in the European market, according to a report.

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The latest research by Context shows just under 200,000 enterprise-grade nearline storage devices of 10TB capacity, and more were sold to end-users in Europe this April, marking a 240% increase compared to April 2020, reports The Register.
The Chia network was founded in 2018 by Bram Cohen, co-founder BitTorrent, one of the most influential protocols on the internet.
That Chia relies on proof of space rather than proof of work is driving the rise in demand for drives and growth across the market, said the report.
"It has taken everybody by surprise following the launch of Chia," Gurvan Meyer, senior enterprise analyst at Context, told the publication. "Even Western Digital and Seagate were not expecting high demand like this," said Meyer.
The analyst said he expects the effect on the market to be long-lasting.