Taiwanese SSD controller manufacturer Phison is forecasting at least 10% rise in SSD prices in the coming months due to Chia mining and supply chain disruptions caused by pandemics.

Taiwanese company Phison Electronics, a well-known developer and supplier of controllers for solid-state drives, said it expects at least a 10 percent increase in SSD prices due to the growing demand caused by mining the Chia cryptocurrency coupled with limited supply. According to Phison, the SSD shortage will last until 2023.

Phison sells SSDs and other NAND flash-based storage devices. Microsoft is one of Phison's major customers — the company uses a Phison-based SSD in its latest Xbox game consoles.

According to unofficial reports, Phison and other Taiwanese SSD controller makers raised prices for their chips in the first quarter due to strong demand amid capacity constraints caused by the pandemic. Phison reported revenue of $460 million in the first quarter of 2021 and profit for the quarter of $60.6 million, DigiTimes reported.

According to DigiTimes, the chairman of the board of Phison said that NAND flash memory manufacturers intend to increase prices again by about 10% in the third quarter of 2021 due to strong demand due to the growing PC market and the growing interest in mining the Chia cryptocurrency.

The Chia cryptocurrency was created by the author of the BitTorrent protocol, Bram Cohen. The Chia network uses Proof-of-Space and Proof-of-Time consensus algorithms. Chia is mined on hard drives and solid-state drives, allegedly making Chia a greener cryptocurrency.