Cryptomining has been cited as a major factor behind the drought of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards, but the actual amount of miners who are snatching up Ampere GPUs might be somewhat exaggerated. The possibility stems from recent remarks made by Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, who spoke during yesterday’s Q4 2021 earnings call and echoed estimates from analysts who claim that cryptomining only contributed $100 to $300 million to NVIDIA’s Q4 gaming revenue. Green team managed to make a record $2.5 billion from its gaming segment in Q4 2021, so those figures, if accurate, would suggest that there are more influential factors at play behind the global GPU drought.
“Analyst estimate[s] suggest that cryptomining contributed 100 million to 300 million to our Q4 revenue, a relatively small portion of our gaming revenue in Q4,” Kress said. The CFO admitted that there was no real way to determine how many GPUs were really going to the cryptomining market, however, as they can’t be “accurately tracked or quantified” after heading to manufacturers for distribution.
Kress goes on to reveal that NVIDIA only expects to earn a relatively modest $15 million from its new Cryptomining Mining Processors (CMP), which were recently introduced to satiate the demands of the mining market. These CMPs feature designs specifically tailored for professional mining operations, such as a fully open, airflow-optimized bracket and lower peak core voltage and frequency for improved mining power efficiency.
“CMP products will let us gain some visibility into the contribution of cryptomining to our overall revenue,” Kress explained. “For Q1, we estimate that CMP will contribute approximately 15 million. We plan to sell these products to industrial miners. We will quantify their contribution each quarter for transparency.”