Demand for graphics cards in the cryptocurrency mining world appears to be plummeting.
On Thursday, Nvidia reported a huge drop in GPU sales for cryptocurrency mining rigs during this year's second quarter, when Bitcoin's value sunk to a yearly low. Nvidia originally anticipated "cryptocurrency-specific product revenue" reaching $100 million during the quarter, but it actually came in at a mere $18 million, the company's CFO Colette Kress said in an earnings call.
That's massive fall from this year's first quarter when Nvidia raked in $289 million from "crypto-specific GPUs." Going forward, the company now expects a "negligible contribution" in graphics cards sales to the mining market and will no longer include them in future financial forecasts, executives said.
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According to Huang, the company began noticing an uptick
But since then, the whole cryptocurrency market has largely tanked. Bitcoin's price has fallen to about $6,300 a coin. Other virtual currencies that can be mined have also suffered price drops as well.
The good news? If you're a gamer, the prices for Nvidia graphics cards have been falling back to normal levels. During the cryptocurrency boom, the cost for many Nvidia GPUs briefly doubled, according to PCPartPicker, which has a website that tracks the current prices. If you want to save some cash, you can also consider buying used graphics cards.