Very true, most people who are serious about mining will have "contacts" within the factories, even their main subsidiaries in the countries they are based in (

Very true, most people who are serious about mining will have "contacts" within the factories, even their main subsidiaries in the countries they are based in (I know I get my stuff directly on order from AMD France for instance). But the bad thing is that most "mining" illiterate people who see the "potential" are just buying and buying with a ridiculous markup because they think it's a guaranteed lifetime revenue or something (poor souls). MSRP for RX 580 is ~250$, I payed 340E a piece directly from AMD about 2-3 weeks ago and online (Amazon, electronics stores etc) they go for minimum 400E now, if not more. So on a card that has a profit of ~2.5$ a day (at the moment) you get an ROI of a little more than 3 months. (with MSRP) With the price I paid 2-3 weeks ago you I will need about 5 and a half months. And the guys that buy at 100%+ markup will get their ROI in about 7-8 months. The thing is, by the end of the year (2018), ethereum (and the majority of people mine eth, with consumer graded GPUs at least) will switch from proof of work to a mix of that and proof of stake, apparently rendering eth mining non profitable/impossible with all that shiny hardware they bought, and they have no idea what they are getting themselves into... Basically in 8 months, with a lot of luck (without electricity costs so actually a little more, and praying the market doesn't crash) they will break even on their investment, they will be able to get pure profits for about 2-3 months before the next generation of GPUs come out and the switch of ethereum to PoS. I actually wonder how many people with little to no knowledge jump on the trend... Manufacturers have no real interest in selling exclusively to miners, so even if they do so, they know that giving 100% of their stock to one target demographic that doesn't actually do much for them is not a good thing. NVIDIA even issued a PSA not long ago to retailers of their product stating they should always prioritize "gamers" and not miners. So my guess is that 99% of this inflation of prices is due to a public that has done close to no research beforehand and are just in a "gold rush" mentality, but these guys are not miners, they wish real hard they were when they read posts about students on reddit making 5K a month and make stupid rushed decisions. If that's the case, eventually when they realise how bad for everyone it is to buy at that kind of markup, the hype will slowly die. Pretty sure it's going to be exactly like what happened with the cryptocurrency markets recently : very good performance in december, media coverage, hype train, everyone and their grandmother joins in and then the demand skyrockets, prices go up accordingly, then the correction arrives (obviously) and people cry they lost their 3rd mortgage on their house to cryptos... Not a single miner, especially not "big players" would buy at those markups when even at MSRP it can be hard to break even....