The value of Bitcoin plummeted this week to its lowest since September 2017—and Nvidia's stock price similarly suffered.
After starting the week at around $5,500, Bitcoin's value currently sits below $4,000, a drop of around 30% on the week and around 75% on the year to date. The downward spiral started in the second week of November, when Bitcoin dipped below $6,000 for the first time in more than a year. Other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum have experienced similar losses.
It's no surprise: in August, Wes wrote that many cryptocurrencies had lost 90% of their value since January. But the scale of the losses over the past few weeks is staggering, and has interesting implications for PC gaming. As Paul wrote last week, the crypto-mining crash has left Nvidia with "excess" stock, and its share price has been hammered: it's now at its lowest since July 2017 after falling 10% this week.
While bad news for the graphics card manufacturer, the cryptocurrency crash could be—as Paul wrote in August—good news for PC gamers. With fewer people buying GPUs for cryptocurrency mining, there's less chance of another graphics card shortage, which means card prices should remain stable for the foreseeable future.
