A man known online as "Qiao," a precious-metal refiner from Huizhou in Guangdong province, China, surprised millions of people after sharing a video of his gold refining work. Posted on January 20, 2026, the video quickly went viral and received more than 5 million views. In the video, Qiao showed barrels filled with chemicals where he placed old telecom industry scrap, including chip waste and electronic parts. Through several steps involving chemical reactions, corrosion, metal displacement, filtering, and heating, he extracted tiny amounts of gold. At the end of the process, he produced 191 grams of pure gold worth nearly 200,000 yuan, or about $29,000. After the video spread online, many people believed the gold came only from old SIM cards. However, Qiao later explained to Xiaoxiang Morning Post that this was not true. The gold actually came from nearly two tonnes of telecom industry scrap, not from SIM cards alone. Cybernews also pointed out that one SIM card contains less than 0.001 grams of gold. This means it would take more than 1,000 SIM cards to collect just 1 gram of gold. The online claim that people could easily get rich from old SIM cards was therefore very misleading. Even so, the video started a buying craze. Some sellers began offering bundles of old SIM cards and even DIY gold-refining kits and tutorials for around 485 yuan, or about $70. Qiao warned people not to copy the process. He said it uses dangerous chemicals, including aqua regia, which can seriously harm people if handled incorrectly. He also explained that processing electronic waste without proper permission can lead to legal trouble in China.

A man known online as "Qiao," a precious-metal refiner from Huizhou in Guangdong province, China, surprised millions of people after sharing a video of his gold refining work. Posted on January 20, 2026, the video quickly went viral and received more than 5 million views. In the video, Qiao showed barrels filled with chemicals where he placed old telecom industry scrap, including chip waste and electronic parts. Through several steps involving chemical reactions, corrosion, metal displacement, filtering, and heating, he extracted tiny amounts of gold. At the end of the process, he produced 191 grams of pure gold worth nearly 200,000 yuan, or about $29,000. After the video spread online, many people believed the gold came only from old SIM cards. However, Qiao later explained to Xiaoxiang Morning Post that this was not true. The gold actually came from nearly two tonnes of telecom industry scrap, not from SIM cards alone. Cybernews also pointed out that one SIM card contains less than 0.001 grams of gold. This means it would take more than 1,000 SIM cards to collect just 1 gram of gold. The online claim that people could easily get rich from old SIM cards was therefore very misleading. Even so, the video started a buying craze. Some sellers began offering bundles of old SIM cards and even DIY gold-refining kits and tutorials for around 485 yuan, or about $70. Qiao warned people not to copy the process. He said it uses dangerous chemicals, including aqua regia, which can seriously harm people if handled incorrectly. He also explained that processing electronic waste without proper permission can lead to legal trouble in China.