Crypto traders are reacting negatively to reports that AI bellwether Nvidia NVDA$173.72·Market Closed is prepping to remove CEO Jensen Huang amid the controversy surrounding his affair with a suspected Chinese spy.
Perpetual futures tied to NVDA, trading on the leading decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, are down nearly 12% to $160.99 as of this writing. Perps listed on major centralized exchanges, including Binance, OKX, and Bybit, have posted similar losses.
The actual Nasdaq-listed stock closed at $173 on Wednesday and dropped further by over 7% in after-market trading
If Hyperliquid’s price action is any guide, it could fall further. The stock has already lost substantial market value, peaking at $243 on October 6 and sliding nearly 90 degrees since.
The frenzy is evident in the cumulative trading volume in perpetual futures listed across all exchanges, which has surged to a record high of over $4 billion, according to data source Coinglass. Binance alone accounts for 44% of that tally.
In terms of open interest, the $HYPE-USDC perps listed on Hyperliquid are leading the way with a tally of $535 million as of this writing. That makes NVDA perps the biggest among all the tradfi-linked markets on Hyperliquid. They are also the fourth-largest across all markets listed on the exchange, behind only BTC, ETH, and $HYPE.
This demonstrates the scale of price discovery across unregulated, centralized, and decentralized crypto trading venues.
Hyperliquid, in particular, has emerged as the preferred venue for traders seeking exposure to traditional assets this year. It began with the Iran war, which started in early March. As war-related news broke over the weekend and traditional markets remained closed, investors rushed to the decentralized platform to express their views on oil, gold, and equity indices.
Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, traded slightly weaker at around #73,650, well within the range seen over the past 48 hours. The cryptocurrency has occasionally shown a strong positive correlation with NVDA. Meanwhile, Nasdaq futures were down 0.75%, signaling a partial reversal of Wednesday's near 2% gain.
Nvidia turmoil
The panic began after, on Nov. 8, Huang admitted to having an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believed was acting on behalf of Beijing.
