Nvidia says ‘crypto adds nothing useful to society’ after billions in mining sales

Michael Kagan, Chief Technology Officer at Nvidia, said: expressed a negative opinion Cryptocurrencies “do nothing useful for society,” he said, but “AI does.”

Virtual currency is “useless for society”

According to Kagan, AI applications such as the chatbot ChatGPT are worth more than cryptocurrency mining. Kagan’s comments aren’t all that surprising given Nvidia’s history of distancing itself from the cryptocurrency community, including limiting the ability of graphics cards to mine Ethereum in 2021.

Kagan emphasized his anti-crypto stance, stating that he never believed in blockchain technology.

“I never believed it [crypto] Do something good for humanity. “

Nvidia’s Recent Crypto Past

However, Nvidia’s stock market success over the past two years seems to correlate with the crypto industry. In 2021, before The Merge, Nvidia released a graphics chip optimized for Ethereum mining (CMP) while limiting its gaming-focused graphics cards.However, the tip couldn’t impress Because sales are “nominal” and collapsed 77% in the third quarter of 2022.

Additionally, Nvidia was fined $5.5 million by the SEC in May 2022. do not disclose Number of GPUs sold for mining. The SEC alleges that Nvidia knew the cards were being used for mining but did not disclose the information, which they said misled investors as to the growth of the business. Given that parts were used to mine Ethereum, which moved to Proof of Stake at the end of 2022, it is a valid criticism that demand for the card has dissipated after the merger.

Leading up to the Ethereum merge on September 15, 2022, Nvidia game earnings GPU (which was mostly still working in cryptocurrency mining below Community workaround) decreased to $1.57 billion from $3.2 billion a year earlier. Therefore, as demand for Ethereum miners declined, so did Nvidia’s sales. In fact, looking at his Nvidia stock price compared to the price of Ethereum, both hit all-time highs within a week of each other before falling significantly.

Interestingly, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also said in 2017: The market demand for it will grow and become very large over time. “

Now, Ethereum appears to have moved to Proof of Stake and its CMP chips could not take off. The company has almost completely turned its back on cryptocurrencies in line with Kagan’s statement. The company focuses on his AI research and gaming, with major clients such as Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle buying over 36,000 of his Nvidia’s AI-focused processors. .