Nvidia Hit with Class Action: Did They Hide Billions in Crypto Mining Revenue?

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Nvidia Faces Class Action Over Alleged Crypto Mining Revenue Disclosure Gaps

A lawsuit has been revived in federal court against Nvidia, accusing the company of hiding how much money it made from cryptocurrency mining. The suit claims Nvidia incorrectly reported this revenue as coming from its gaming business, misleading investors during a time of significant fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market.

As a researcher following this case, I can share that the lawsuit, initially known as *In re NVIDIA Corp. Securities Litigation* (Case No. 21-cv-02899), claims NVIDIA violated securities laws – specifically Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and its accompanying Rule 10b-5. The lawsuit also alleges that CEO Jensen Huang is responsible for these violations. After being dismissed on technicalities in 2022, the case was refiled and officially reinstated on January 15, 2026.

This situation is tricky for the company, which is now a leading provider of infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Even if the lawsuit doesn’t immediately succeed, we believe it will lead to closer examination of how hardware companies that previously relied heavily on cryptocurrency have reported their financial results. Regulators haven’t yet provided clear rules on this issue.

For investors in Nvidia and compliance officials at competing graphics card companies, this issue isn’t simply an outdated concern. The core question – whether Nvidia improperly categorized sales of hardware used for cryptocurrency mining as regular gaming revenue – has broader implications that extend beyond the company’s financial reports from 2017 and 2018.

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NVIDIA Crypto Class Action: Inside the Disclosure Allegations

The lawsuit focuses on how Nvidia reported its earnings between late 2017 and early 2018. During this time, strong demand for its graphics cards (GPUs) due to cryptocurrency mining – especially for Ethereum – led to unusually high sales. The plaintiffs claim Nvidia incorrectly categorized most of these sales as coming from gamers, instead of separating them as cryptocurrency mining revenue. This, they argue, gave investors a misleading impression of stable and diverse income when, in reality, sales were heavily reliant on the volatile cryptocurrency market.

A U.S. court has allowed a class action lawsuit against Nvidia and its CEO, Jensen Huang, to move forward. The lawsuit alleges that Nvidia intentionally didn’t disclose over $1 billion in revenue related to graphics cards used for cryptocurrency mining between August 10, 2017, and November 15, 2018. Investors are claiming Nvidia concealed this information.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 26, 2026

The lawsuit claims that Nvidia internally tracked about $155 million in GPU sales from cryptocurrency mining during the last three months of 2017, but didn’t reveal this information to the public. Investors argue that when Nvidia mentioned increased demand during the same period, the company intentionally used unclear language to avoid having to report mining revenue as a separate and significant financial factor. The lawsuit represents investors who owned Nvidia stock between January and November 2018, covering the period when demand for GPUs used in cryptocurrency mining was at its highest and then sharply declined.

The legal argument centers around whether Nvidia misled investors. Specifically, it claims Nvidia made inaccurate or incomplete statements about where its revenue came from. Investors supposedly believed these statements and suffered losses when demand from cryptocurrency miners decreased, and Nvidia had to significantly lower its sales predictions. To prove wrongdoing, the plaintiffs are presenting internal company communications they believe show Nvidia’s executives knew about the risks associated with relying so heavily on revenue from miners.

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Securities Disclosure Law and the Crypto Revenue Problem

The situation with Nvidia isn’t happening without existing rules in place. Since 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has indicated that publicly traded companies earning significant income from cryptocurrency-related businesses have extra reporting requirements. Specifically, they must clearly explain any trends or potential issues that could substantially affect their revenue in their management discussions.

Although the SEC’s 2018 investigation of Nvidia’s financial reporting didn’t result in any penalties, it made it clear that the agency was worried about a lack of transparency regarding revenue from cryptocurrency mining and considered it an ongoing compliance issue.

As a crypto investor, I’ve been following some lawsuits against companies that tried to hide the fact that a lot of their revenue came from risky parts of their business. It’s been a mixed bag in court so far. Basically, when companies – especially in tech and semiconductors – tried to make it look like their income was more stable than it really was, courts have demanded really strong proof that the company *knew* they were doing something wrong. It’s a high bar to clear, and it’s based on a specific law – the PSLRA – that makes it tougher to sue if you can’t prove intentional wrongdoing.

The court rulings that apply to this case require specific details showing that company leaders intentionally acted wrongly or were extremely careless, rather than simply knowing that mining brought in a lot of money. Previous attempts to bring this case failed because they didn’t meet this standard, and whether this new version succeeds will depend on whether recently discovered documents provide stronger evidence of wrongdoing.

Companies publicly traded and involved with cryptocurrency currently face unclear rules about what they need to disclose to investors. Recent court cases show judges are having to decide the difference between standard business risks and the specific risks of dealing with crypto – something the Securities and Exchange Commission has hinted at, but hasn’t clearly defined in official regulations.

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2026-03-26 18:24