Chip Boom Loses Steam on Slowing PC Sales, Crypto Rout

Pandemic-era boom in semiconductors is showing its first signs of weakness. Surge in personal-computer sales and rout in cryptocurrency markets are behind the decline. The waning of the crypto boom has also put an end to early pandemic scenes of people camping outside computer stores to buy chips for cryptocurrency mining and high-end videogaming. Inflation dissuades people from upgrading machines that they bought in the past couple of years amid the shift toward remote work and learning, the experts say. The surge in chip sales is driven by a slump in personal computer sales and a rout in the cryptocurrency markets, the researchers said. The Covid-19 pandemic has vanished in the wake of the global shortage of semiconductonductors, they said. Source