NVIDIA foresees cryptocurrency mining demand slowdown

Market sources say NVIDIA is taking measures to minimize the possible hit from a slowdown of the cryptocurrency mining market. Over the last half year or so, demand for GPUs has been pretty insane as cryptocurrency miners bought up huge amounts of cards to build mining rigs.

Demand for GPUs from the mining segment reportedly weakened due to the price drop of cryptocurrencies as well as the increased regulation. Additionally, market watchers believe demand will soon start shifting to ASICs. Chinese crypto giant Bitmain is expected to introduce new ASIC products in April, these could lower demand for GPUs.

DigiTimes heard NVIDIA aims to shit sales back to consumers in the gaming market. Gamers have been hit pretty hard in recent months, as the most popular gaming cards from both AMD and NVIDIA are nowhere to be found at MSRP-like prices.

Seeing the trend, Nvidia has recently started placing restrictions on its downstream graphics card partners, forbiding them to publicly promote cryptocurrency mining activities or actively sell its consumer graphics cards to miners, the sources said. Nvidia hopes to shift its main sales target back to consumers in the gaming market, the sources added.

Nvidia also has further increased its GPU quotes recently, which the sources believe is meant to help cover the gap that may occur after GPU demand starts sliding.