Court Allows Nvidia Class Action Over Hidden Crypto Revenue

The SEC fined Nvidia $5.5M for not disclosing how crypto mining affected its revenue, forming part of the backdrop to the class action.

A U.S. district court has allowed a class action lawsuit against Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang to proceed following investor claims that over $1 billion of the company’s crypto revenue was actually hidden in its gaming offering.

The tech giant also failed to prove that its statements on crypto mining revenue did not affect the firm’s stock price.

False Statements

A Wednesday filing suggests that during the 2017-2018 crypto boom, Nvidia misled investors by having them believe they were buying its gaming GPUs. However, the sales were actually tied to the crypto market, and once prices began falling, the firm was left with a lot of unsold inventory that caused its stock price to plummet.

Plaintiffs first sued the company in 2018, alleging that it had not disclosed around $1.3 billion of the total revenue made from these sales and that Huang had downplayed the actual demand. At the time, the CEO appeared in several interviews claiming that the firm’s crypto-related demand was “small.” He also insisted the gaming division was its core business and that crypto simply provided “an extra bit of juice.”

Additionally, the company launched a special crypto SKU chip whose sales were reported under its mining revenue segment. Plaintiffs argue that this was done to convince investors that Nvidia’s gaming business was separate from its mining operations.

According to the filings, the company’s defense was based on the argument that these statements were not made with the intention of influencing investors and, therefore, had no price impact. However, Judge Gilliam Jr. concluded that Nvidia failed to prove this, pointing to an internal email from one of the firm’s executives as evidence.

“They expressed the view that its stock price remained high because of those earlier statements, and the court cannot conclude that there was no price impact in the face of such evidence.”

As a result, the court ruled that the class action was allowed to proceed and scheduled a hearing for April 21.

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NVIDIA’s Stock Price Plummets

Things took a turn in 2018 when the crypto market began to weaken. In August, Nvidia announced that it had lowered its revenue and admitted to miners buying its gaming GPUs. The company also shared that its inventory had grown by 36%.

Reacting to the news, Nvidia’s stock price fell by 4.9%. The tech giant later issued another revenue cut announcement, citing a fall in crypto demand.

During this period, Colette Kress, the firm’s CFO, admitted that gaming revenues had missed expectations because of unsold inventory. This resulted in the company’s stock price plummeting by 28.5% over the next two trading sessions.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) previously issued the company a $5.5 million fine for failing to disclose how crypto mining affected its general revenue. Regulators said that it should have told investors that most of its GPU demand came from the miners.