Bitcoin, crypto market extend losses following Jensen Huang's resignation

Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader crypto market extended losses on Thursday after Jensen Huang resigned as President and CEO of Nvidia (NVDA). The top crypto fell below $72,000 after the news, while Ethereum (ETH) briefly dropped to $1,990 before recovering to $2,000. BNB, XRP and Solana (SOL) are also down 4%, 2.8% and 3%, respectively.

The move triggered $719.9 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, led by $642.2 million in liquidated long positions, per Coinglass data.

Nvidia announces leadership change following Huang's resignation

The fresh pressure came as Nvidia announced that Jensen Huang had resigned as President, CEO and a member of the company's board.

The board appointed Colette Kress, Nvidia's current executive vice president and CFO, as interim CEO while it searches for a permanent replacement. Kress will retain her finance position until a new chief executive is appointed.

“Nvidias strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,” Colette Kress said.

The board will consider both internal and external candidates as part of the search. Nvidia also appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever chairman of the board.

“Colette has helped lead Nvidia through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position,” Jones said.

Huang's departure follows growing controversy surrounding his reported relationships with three women, including Huang Le, a Chinese businesswoman suspected by US authorities of having links to Chinese intelligence. Unverified reports also linked him to Nvidia's Vice President of Healthcare, Kimberly Powell, as well as a separate employee of Nvidia.

Jensen earlier acknowledged the affair with Powell, after which Nvidia's board launched an independent investigation into the allegations. The company did not explicitly identify the controversy as the reason for his departure in its official announcement.

Nvidia trades at $163.60, down 5.8% at the time of writing.

AI tokens extend losses as Nvidia shares fall

Nvidia’s latest announcement added further pressure to the AI token category, which fell more sharply than Bitcoin and Ethereum, down 5.6% over the past 24 hours as several leading tokens extended their declines.

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) led losses among major AI-related cryptocurrencies, falling 10%, while Bittensor (TAO) declined 7%. Render (RENDER) also dropped 8%, while Pearl (PEARL) recorded the largest decline, falling 12%.

The performance placed AI-related tokens among the weakest-performing category of the crypto market during the period.

Bitcoin has since recovered to $71,500, down 3.7% in the past 24 hours at the time of writing.