Nvidia fined $5.5 million for allegedly hiding how many GPUs it sold to crypto miners
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is making Nvidia pay $5.5 million for not disclosing how many of its gaming graphics cards (GPUs) were bought by cryptocurrency miners.
The SEC announced charges against Nvidia Friday, specifically for not telling investors that cryptomining had a significant role in the company’s material growth during the 2018 fiscal year.
“Nvidia’s disclosure failures deprived investors of critical information to evaluate the company’s business in a key market,” said Kristina Littman, SEC crypto assets and cyber unit chief, in a press release. “All issuers, including those that pursue opportunities involving emerging technology, must ensure that their disclosures are timely, complete, and accurate.”
The trouble is that most of these GPUs sold are intended for playing video games, not mining ethereum. In Nvidia’s 2018 financial filings, the company reported $9.71 billion in revenue, up 41 percent from 2017, attributing half of that success to gaming. The SEC’s report states, “during consecutive quarters in Nvidia’s fiscal year 2018, the company failed to disclose that cryptomining was a significant element of its material revenue growth from the sale of its graphics processing units (GPUs) designed and marketed for gaming.”
Anyone that’s tried building a PC in the past couple of years will tell you it’s a nightmare due to GPU scarcity, all because of this crypto mining business, including myself — which isn’t fun when your job is to write about games and attaining the hardware is like searching for Atlantis.
It’s also why obtaining the PS5, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and every other game console is difficult due to the global semiconductor shortage.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.