Gold prices keep rising, and surprisingly, some people are eyeing the gold in discarded circuit boards. Recently, the "electronic alchemy craze" on short videos has gone viral. There’s also news about a Guangdong man who used a SIM card to refine 191 grams of gold, which topped the trending searches. However, the truth isn’t as glamorous as it seems. The person involved said he used a full two tons of raw materials, working five or six hours to produce this gold. Just treating the wastewater costs about 400 yuan per cubic meter. Calculations show that this batch of gold, worth 210,000 yuan, actually yields only about 10,000 yuan in profit—if gold prices dip slightly, all that effort is wasted. More importantly, private gold refining is a legal red line. Handling electronic waste without proper certification can lead to business suspension, confiscation of proceeds, and hefty fines.