According to media reports, Nvidia, a computer hardware manufacturer, has profited off of the cryptocurrency mining industry in recent years but its top executive has now criticized crypto.
Michael Kagan, CTO of Nvidia, said that crypto does not “bring anything useful for society” and he hopes that NVIDIA products are used for artificial intelligence (AI) development rather than crypto mining. In his words:
All this crypto stuff, it needed parallel processing, and [Nvidia] is the best so people just programmed it to use for this purpose. They bought a lot of stuff, and then eventually it collapsed because it doesn’t bring anything useful to society. AI does.
Additionally, the Web3 gaming industry has been emerging and has seen substantial venture capital funding in recent months. However, Kagan simply doesn’t believe that crypto has merit and can prove to be beneficial. Quoting him:
I never believed that [crypto] is something that will do something good for humanity. You know, people do crazy things, but they buy your stuff, and you sell them stuff. But you don’t redirect the company to support whatever it is.
Sources reveal that Nvidia has maintained a mixed relationship with cryptocurrencies. Before Ethereum switched to the proof-of-stake model in September last year, there was a high demand for powerful graphics cards (GPUs). The demand increased as Ethereum miners used them to mine token rewards via the original proof-of-work model.
Additionally, the shortage of chips that flared during the pandemic led to an increase in the price of GPUs. The cost of GPUs skyrocketed and it became close to impossible for gamers to buy the latest generation of graphics cards. Taking advantage of the situation and in an effort to deter crypto miners, Nvidia then tried to force hashrate limitations on its products for which hackers found a workaround.
Later, they also released special products designed for crypto miners, such as the Nvidia Cmp Hx, a chip that the company claims is “designed for professional mining operations.”
Notably, despite their CTO’s dislike for crypto, the firm has made huge profits from the crypto industry for years. Additionally, Kagan stated that the crypto industry has “collapsed,” surprisingly at a time Bitcoin and Ethereum have regained value in recent months. As of writing, Bitcoin is up 17% in the past month whereas Ethereum has surged by almost 7%.
While the cryptocurrency market is expanding and the adoption is also increasing, it is important to note that there are several dignified figures that have rooted for AI over crypto, Web3, metaverse, etc. Answering questions during an interactive session, Bill Gates said that he doesn’t think Web3 is even that significant or that the metaverse alone was revolutionary, he does believe that AI is fairly revolutionary.
According to a survey conducted by JP Morgan in February, 53% of the institutional investors believe that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will be the most influential technology in shaping the future of trading over the next three years, a significant increase from 25% the previous year.
This made AI the clear winner, four times more often cited than blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT), which landed in third place with 12% of the vote. API integration was second with 14%, and mobile trading applications fell to 7% straight from the last year with 29%. The survey involved 835 institutional traders in 60 global markets.