Cryptocurrency has been great for GPU makers—that might change soon

Enlarge / Mostly bare shelves in the graphics card case at a Washington, DC, Best Buy in January. (credit: Timothy B. Lee)

Nvidia announced its financial results on Thursday, and they were spectacular. For the company's first fiscal quarter-which runs from late January through late April-the company had revenues of $3.2 billion. That's up 10 percent from the previous quarter and up 66 percent over the last year. Profits were even more impressive, rising 11 percent from the previous quarter and 145 percent from a year earlier.

A big reason for this: the soaring value of ether and other cryptocurrencies in recent months created a ton of demand for graphics cards to mine them. That surging demand caused the street price of some high-end graphics cards to more than double between mid-2017 and February 2018.

It's a sensitive subject for major graphics-card makers because their most important market in the long run is gamers, not miners. Gamers don't like the idea of graphics-card makers raking in big profits from inflated prices driven by mining demand.

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