NVIDIA's Results Were Both Positive and Negative: You may ask why we are covering NVIDIA's quarterly results in a market update for digital assets. Since ChatGPT's release in November 2022, markets have increasingly viewed NVIDIA's results as a key indicator of risk sentiment, with the company serving as the backbone of the AI frenzy. As a result, NVIDIA’s stock performance also impacts digital assets.
On Wednesday evening after U.S. equity markets closed, NVIDIA released its second-quarter results. The company beat slightly on revenue and earnings versus market expectations: revenue hit $46.74 billion versus $46.06 billion estimated, while earnings per share reached $1.05 versus $1.01 expected. Management also issued guidance for the current period that exceeded estimates.
However, the important data-center segment—which includes sales of powerful chips used to train and refine artificial intelligence models—came in slightly below expectations. This sent NVIDIA stock lower in Wednesday's after-hours trading, though it recovered most losses during Thursday's regular session.
The U.S. Publishes Economic Data on Blockchains: Thursday marked a historic moment when the U.S. government released economic data on public blockchains for the first time. The U.S. Department of Commerce published gross domestic product (GDP) data on nine different blockchains: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, TRON, Stellar, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism. The data was also distributed through oracle networks Chainlink and Pyth.
The agency described this GDP data release as a proof of concept while stressing it will continue to innovate and broaden the scope of publishing future datasets to include additional blockchains, oracles, and exchanges.
While this development is not a gamechanger for crypto, it signals that blockchains can serve purposes beyond finance. Since the U.S. government is publishing data directly on these public blockchains, it lends credibility to digital assets.
Ethereum’s Staking Exit Queue Reaches Record Levels: Last week, Ethereum's staking exit queue hit nearly $5 billion worth of Ether for the first time ever. The staking exit queue forms when Ethereum holders wish to unstake their Ether. The Ethereum network limits how many validators can exit daily—when unstaking requests exceed this limit, a queue forms. Last week's queue peaked at about 1.06 million Ether, worth $4.96 billion at the time. The exit queue has since declined to about 927,000 Ether today.
This massive exit queue is generally a negative signal, suggesting many market participants are unstaking to potentially sell their Ether after decent returns in recent months. However, the entry queue to stake Ether also remains very high at about 735,000 Ether, signaling almost as many want to stake. The key issue: Ether in the entry queue has already been purchased, while the exit queue may represent Ether that has not been sold yet.
