[GameSpot] - Nvidia Decries Crypto, Says It Adds "Nothing Useful To Society"

[343iBot]

Nvidia might have made a bundle off crypto miners buying the company's GPUs over the years, but that doesn't mean that the company likes cryptocurrency. In a recent interview with the Guardian, a company executive said that crypto adds "nothing useful to society," especially compared to AI chatbots like ChatGPT.

Michael Kagan, the chief technology officer of Nvidia, says that he would rather see the processing power of the company's cards fuel something societally useful, such as the current AI boom. He compared the crypto boom to the high-frequency trading industry, which made his former company Mellanox a lot of money.

“I never believed that [crypto] is something that will do something good for humanity," he said. "You know, people do crazy things, but they buy your stuff, you sell them stuff. But you don’t redirect the company to support whatever it is.”

Nvidia famously limited the ability of its graphics cards to mine popular crypto coins in an attempt to discourage farmers. Last year, the Ethereum blockchain switched to a "proof-of-stake" system that reportedly decreased its energy consumption by 99.9%, after many criticized the massive carbon footprint of crypto farming.

In other news, Nvidia has gone all-in on the recent AI boom. The company's CEO, Jensen Huang, said at the company's annual conference that AI would "reinvent nearly every industry," all the while powered by Nvidia cards. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

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