As the Ethereum Constantinople upgrade day approaches, things around it should have grabbed the headlines of the crypto space. While a crypto coin named Grin has somehow hit the crypto headlines along with Ethereum’s eighth fork in the Chinese crypto community.

GPU Miners Ready to Go

Amidst the crypto bear, miners’ chat groups became noisy again for the advent of Grin and Beam – two cryptocoins built on privacy-oriented protocol Mimblewimble.

“500 units of GPU miners wanted, with Nvidia P104, 1070, or 1080!” “Beam wanted! 10.5 yuan per coin via over-the-counter (OTC) trading, 5,000 Beams wanted.”

When privacy-centered coin Beam launched its mainnet on Jan 3, the long-awaited miners swarmed into it, at the same time, a dozen OTC marketplace hidden in QQ chat groups (one of the most popular instant messenger in China) popped up upon the mainnet launch of Beam, with the OTC price surging from 6 yuan ($0.88) up to 11 yuan ($1.62) in two days.

The price of Beam even hit a high of 55 yuan, spiking 500% upon listing on trading platforms Hotbit, MXC and QBTC days later on Jan. 8. But soon it fell back to the OTC price around 10 yuan. As of Jan 10, 10.5 million yuan ($1.55 million) worth Beam had been traded on exchanges in 24 hours, outperforming many top 50 cryptocurrencies by market value.

On the other hand, the much-anticipated Grin claims its mainnet would be due by today Jan 15. The advent of the duo has brought fresh momentum to the quiet GPU mining market.

Li Yuan, who wants to make a bet on Beam and Grin, has been looking for GPU miners. “They’re hotly discussed in the market at present. Early players could make fast money easily.” said Li with absolute confidence but also anxiety that he has not collected enough mining rigs.

“We’ve received numerous inquiries asking about renting GPU mining rigs these days, mostly coming for Beam and Grin mining with an expected rental period within 4 months.” Said Wu Sheng who provides service of hashrate rental.

When many are wondering why the duo is so hot, Miner Du Tan has been mining Beam with his P106 mining rigs. The mining cost of a coin is about 5 yuan, while the trading price in OTC desk is double of that.

“This is the first time mw protocol is implemented and there’s a strong consensus in the community, so it is very worth a try.”

China-based mining pools like F2Pool and BTC.com have announced their support for Grin mining once its mainnet is launched.

The two coins, not only fascinate small and medium miners in China, but also trigger a quite stir overseas. A user on Discord said he has 2,000 Nvidia graphics cards in ready for Grin mining.

Layer1, a cryptocurrency hedge fund backed by PayPal co-founder and noted venture capitalist Peter Thiel, also said it’s “deeply involved” with privacy-focused cryptocurrency grin.

Really a Good Chance to Go?

Everyone who missed the BTC windfall would beat their chest asking why not me. Now a group of people is drawing a new big cake for them. Grin and Beam, described as an opportunity for everyone to start all over again, may provide a boost for the sluggish GPU mining market, especially at the eve of the Ethereum Constantinople fork after which block rewards will reducing from 3 ETH to 2 ETH. But is it really a good chance to go?

According to Hotbit, Beam has seen its price all the way down to 4.7 yuan from a high of around 10 yuan four days ago, with an 18.3% drop over the past 24 hours.

In the meanwhile, a price prediction of Grin has been started on Reddit,

“Will the price start high and drop over the first days (Like Beam), or will it be super cheap at first and then slowly start to crawl back up?” -“My armchair prediction is a psychological gravitation towards $1 per GRIN at launch followed by an overshoot to $2-3, and then a dip to like $.25 before it starts on a long term unstable climb probably again gravitating back towards $1. And if it gains real adoption then maybe higher.” -“From what I’ve seen from coins being released in the current market conditions, I would expect the initial price of GRIN and what you would be able to buy/sell GRIN for in the initial few weeks will be significantly higher than what you could buy/sell GRIN for after a few months on an exchange.”

As an early bitcoin miner in China commented,