A man in southern China has drawn widespread attention after claiming he extracted 191.73 grams of gold worth more than 210,000 yuan (about RM119,000) from discarded SIM cards and electronic waste.
According to Oddity Central, the blogger from Guangdong said he successfully refined the gold from used SIM card chips and other electronic components using several complex processes, including strong acid dissolution and electrolytic reduction.
He also shared a video documenting the extraction process, sparking excitement among viewers, with many expressing interest in trying it themselves.
“Ten years of working is not as good as one year of collecting scrap,” one netizen commented on the viral video, even asking the blogger to take him on as an apprentice.
“SIM cards can be used to make gold? I’ve never heard of this before,” another social media user wrote.
The video quickly triggered massive reactions online. However, experts have cautioned that the actual gold content in SIM card chips is extremely low.
While the video claimed each SIM card contains about 0.02 grams of gold, specialists explained that the real amount is closer to just 0.47 milligrams. This means nearly 400,000 SIM cards would be required to extract around 191 grams of gold.
