Nvidia founder Huang exits immediately as crypto selloff deepens

Nvidia announced that co-founder Jensen Huang had resigned as chief executive, president and board member with immediate effect on November 12, according to CryptoSlate. The move ended Huang’s 33-year run leading the chipmaker. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress was appointed interim CEO while remaining executive vice president and CFO, and Blockonomi reported that former Synopsys CEO Harvey C. Jones would become the company’s first board chair.

Reports leading up to the announcement focused on both governance and personal allegations. The News Crypto, citing Reuters and Bloomberg, said Nvidia directors met on November 11 to discuss Huang’s future. The Crypto Basic said directors were preparing to remove him even though the board had publicly backed his leadership days earlier. CoinEdition and BeInCrypto also referenced allegations concerning personal relationships, suspected foreign intelligence activity and possible Nvidia chip shipments linked to China, though the outlets supplied different levels of detail.

The broad market reaction was consistently described as severe, but the reported figures varied. CoinEdition placed Nvidia’s decline at 8.13%, reaching $159.61 at 9:39 a.m. EST, while The Crypto Basic reported a premarket fall of more than 10% to $155.57. Across the cited coverage, the corroborated range is an 8%-10% share loss. Cointribune covered speculation over possible successors, including a Kalshi market that assigned Tim Cook a 10% chance, but no official permanent appointment had been made.

Nvidia’s leadership transition arrives while cryptocurrency trading is already under pressure. CryptoSlate linked Huang’s resignation to an intensified crypto selloff, while the supplied market data show Bitcoin remaining near $71,000 and the overall crypto market moving broadly lower. The episode therefore unfolded against a backdrop of reduced risk appetite rather than alongside a rising digital-asset market.

Bitcoin was trading at $71,559, down 3.78% over 24 hours and 5.76% over seven days, with a $1.44 trillion market capitalization. The total crypto market stood at $2.46 trillion, and the Fear & Greed index registered 28, corresponding to Fear. DeFiLlama showed Hyperliquid TVL at $1.73 billion, down 2.2% over seven days, and Polymarket TVL at $321.01 million, down 0.1%; the broader market was broadly down.

What matters next is the structure of Nvidia’s succession process and whether the leadership change contributes to further pressure in technology-linked risk assets. 99Bitcoins reports that Nvidia will consider candidates both internally and externally. Kress’s interim tenure means no permanent chief executive had been selected in the confirmed information available at publication, while Bitcoin’s sub-$72,000 trading level and persistent Fear reading provide the immediate market backdrop.