Hardware specially designed to mine digital currencies like Litecoin is going on eBay for nearly double its retail price.
Alpha Technology announced back in November that it would be one of the first firms to build commercially available ASIC mining devices for cryptocurrencies like Litecoin and Dogecoin, with releases due this year.
But its Viper (Scrypt) Miner, able to mine digital coins at previously unheard of speeds, is now listed at $16,400 (£9,808) on eBay, despite not even being released.
The company’s website prices the device at £5,450, excluding VAT, and says the hardware is "coming soon", though it is already described as being out of stock after eager miners pre-ordered it.
Ebay user robrobemani, put his own pre-ordered device up on eBay this month, with the message: "You are now looking at the fastest scrypt mining rig available on the market. Noting else comes even remotely close to it!
"This auction is for the day one, very first batch, of the first ever ACIS scrypt mining rig. SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE!"
While most digital currency mining hardware works at speeds of around three million hashes per second, the Viper (Scrypt) Miner will mine at a minimum of 25 million hashes per second, according to Alpha Technology.
The hash rate is a measure of the processing time and power it takes to mine a digital coin.
To mine most cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Litecoin, a person must dedicate computer processing power to solving complex equations.
Once solved, a block of coins is released, but each equation becomes harder than the last, therefore requiring equivalently more processing power.
This has led to the development of specially designed hardware to boost a person’s mining capability.
The larger a person’s mining capability, the larger their share of the total number of coins available to be mined that day will be.
While the hardware on sale cannot mine Bitcoin, it can mine other digital currencies like Litecoin and Dogecoin, whose mining algorithms are based on a cryptographic algorithm called scrypt.
Five eBay users are currently listed as watching the Viper hardware.
