Nvidia claimed that cryptocurrencies do not make any contribution to society

NVIDIA first introduced cryptocurrency-related restrictions on its GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card in early 2021. However, leaked versions of the Driver for CUDA on SWL version 470.05 Beta driver rendered the so-called restrictions ineffective. After several months, NVIDIA reintroduced an improved version of the cryptocurrency limiter in May 2021, with the launch of the GeForce RTX 30 LHR series. Nevertheless, over the next year, cryptocurrency software developers gradually unlocked all the performance restrictions.

According to Theguardian, NVIDIA’s Chief Technology Officer, Michael Kagan, stated that cryptocurrency has not brought anything useful to society. The computing power used for cryptocurrency could be better utilized for more beneficial applications, such as artificial intelligence. Currently, NVIDIA is focusing its data center business on Large Language Models (LLM) artificial intelligence technology.

The last cryptocurrency craze had a huge impact on the graphics card market, with many players still remembering the skyrocketing prices, which reached up to three times their original value, reaching unimaginable levels. Even now, the effects of the graphics card price surge are still being felt, even as the cryptocurrency hype fades.

In 2022, NVIDIA was accused by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of not providing shareholders with sufficient information and full disclosure of the impact of cryptocurrency on the company’s gaming business. After reaching a settlement, NVIDIA paid a fine of $5.5 million.

The SEC found that NVIDIA had not disclosed that cryptocurrency was a significant factor in the substantial revenue growth of its gaming business, primarily because of its sales of GPUs designed for gaming. Investigations confirmed that NVIDIA had internal data and knowledge of the situation but failed to disclose it as required in its filings.