Hard to say, really. It could be organic, but then, it is in the interest of Chia to spread the stories about "hard drive shortage" - like all crypto schemes, their best user base are people who will see an article about cryptocurrency causing a social-wide issue, and read it as an opportunity. The people who see a disaster and their first thought is about how to profit off it.

I'm a bit worried it's a self fulfilling prophecy:

"People are buying hard drives to farm despite price increases, it must be profitable, maybe I should buy one too..."

Could you or the parent commenter define "submarine" in this context? I searched and didn't find anything relevant.

It's a reference to a pg essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

The part introducing the term is at the beginning:

"Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to. One of the most surprising things I discovered during my brief business career was the existence of the PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms."

It means an advertisement disguised as a news article.