An Internet cafe in Vietnam has reportedly turned to cryptocurrency mining to make a healthy profit while its usual customers stay indoors during the COVID-19 pandemic. As [I_Leak_VN discovered, Star Gaming's LǪP ĐẶT PHÒNG NET cafe is celebrating its switch to the latest GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards by taking to its Facebook page to show off its new mining setup.

"Business Transformation in a Pandemic," the post reads (translated by Facebook)." Profits are higher than in the internet business, any internet room owner who wants to do it, I'll do it for free, contact me."

Shown in the photo is a row of monitors and PCs with dozens of graphics cards on them. Scroll down the page a bit and you can see the impressive equipment the Internet cafe offered to gamers, much of which could be used as cryptocurrency mining rigs and were extremely powerful.

Despite the likely increase in electricity costs, the owners say they are making a healthy profit.

Such business strategies may be gaining traction elsewhere as cafes try to offset losses. Twitter leaker harukaze5719 commented that cryptocurrency mining is a popular move for South Korean cafes.

All of this has been made possible by the recent rise in the value of many cryptocurrencies. The most reliable is Bitcoin, which is currently trading at US$50,000 a piece, but most GPU mining rigs are turning to Ethereum instead for a quick profit.

For Internet cafe owners, much of their focus is on gaming equipment, and they may be sitting on a goldmine of hard-working hardware at a time when it may not be much use elsewhere due to the pandemic. However, cryptocurrency mining wears out these cards considerably, so once gamers resume using them, some of the profits may be used to purchase new equipment.