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'Post-Crypto Hangover' Leaves Nvidia With Unsold Graphics Cards

Nvidia is reporting some excess inventory in the company's mid-range graphics cards. The problem? Prices for GPUs failed to quickly stabilize after cryptocurrency miners briefly drove up demand.

 & Michael Kan Principal Reporter

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Nvidia has a glut of unsold graphics cards thanks in part to crytpcurrency miners no longer buying GPUs.

On Thursday, Nvidia said it was experiencing some excess inventory in mid-range graphics cards, blaming the problem on the "post-crypto hangover," which temporarily inflated prices for the company's GPUs.

"When pricing is volatile in the channel, it probably freezes some people waiting for prices to stabilize," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during an earnings call. "And that took longer than we expected, frankly."

Nvidia initially reported the plummeting sales in graphic cards from cryptocurrency miners back in August. However, the company is still feeling the ripple effects from the waning demand because prices for Nvidia's graphics cards have taken time to normalize, company executives said.

The unsold graphics cards led Nvidia to miss its original revenue projections for the third quarter, which came in at $3.18 billion, down from the forecasted $3.25 billion.

"We thought we had done a better job of managing the cryptocurrency dynamics, but when the prices came down, we started to come down," Huang said.

However, Nvidia's CEO doesn't expect the glut to last, given that pricing has stabilized. "Now that it's at the right level, our expectation is that the market will return to normal," he added.

Last year, prices for the company's GPUs started to inflate when a single Bitcoin was reaching close to $20,000 in value. To generate the digital gold, cryptocurrency miners were buying up Nvidia graphics card to help them mine the virtual currency.

But since then, the cryptocurrency market has taken a sharp dive. Bitcoin is now valued at $5,500 a coin.

About Our Expert

Michael Kan

Michael Kan

Principal Reporter

My Experience

I've been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I'm currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country's technology sector.

Since 2020, I've covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I've combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink's cellular service.

I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.

I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I'm now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I'm always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.

The Best Tech I've Had:

  • My first video game console: a Nintendo Famicom
  • I loved my Sega Saturn despite PlayStation's popularity.
  • The iPod Video I received as a gift in college
  • Xbox 360 FTW
  • The Galaxy Nexus was the first smartphone I was proud to own.
  • The PC desktop I built in 2013, which still works to this day.

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