Golden girl

Microchips contain gold and a Chinese man with knowhow in safely extracting the precious metal from electronic waste has gone viral with his online post showing how to do it.

Qiao from Huizhou, Guangdong province sparked a sales frenzy for discarded SIM cards after his 20 January video on extracting and refining gold from the chips drew five million views on social media, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

In the video, Qiao showed off the 191 grams of gold he extracted from SIM cards, but warned of the serious safety risks involved in the process.

The small amount of gold worth nearly 200,000 yuan was extracted after processing nearly two tons of mixed chip waste from the telecommunications electronics industry.

SCMP quoted an industry expert as warning those who would try Qiao’s “alchemy” that using corrosive chemicals for extracting gold can release toxic gases or trigger strong corrosive reactions if not done properly.

Meanwhile, a 10-year-old girl from Langfang in Hebei province, China has amassed at least 30 grams of gold that could fetch 33,000 yuan at the current trading price of the precious metal.

The girl’s mother, Bai, shared her young daughter’s wealth on social media, including how she acquired the gold that earned her praise from netizens.

Since 2023, the girl has been buying gold with the “lucky money” given to her in red packets by her parents and relatives as a Lunar New Year gift, SCMP reports.

Bai noted that her daughter typically received around 4,000 yuan in the red packets each year and she first bought gold at about 460 yuan per gram.

The girl invested her money in gold as cash would have been easier to spend than the precious metal, according to Bai.