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Graphics chip manufacturing giant Nvidia saw huge growth in late 2017 and throughout most of 2018 as demand for its high-end Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), used for cryptocurrency mining, skyrocketed. The recent bear market has caused demand for GPUs to dwindle, leaving Nvidia to readjust its strategy.
Full article on Bitcoinist (https://bitcoinist.com/nvidia-calls-off-cryptocurrency-mining/)

From the article:

Did they expect the bull run to last forever? The demand for GPUs for
cryptocurrency mining will only surge again if altcoins start to rise again.

GPUs are obviously useless for Bitcoin mining and therefore this whole
plan by Nvidia is heavily dependent on the arrival of another "altcoin
season". If altcoins continue to fade into obscurity, Nvidia (and AMD as well)
will never see a similar interest from cryptocurrency miners again.

It is possible that the altcoin mania at the end of 2017 was a unique phenomenon that will
never happen again.

It will happen again, just not in the extreme way it happened last year.

If Ethereum at some point will switch to POS, whether it's partly or completely, which only seems to be a matter of time, it will make sure the demand for GPU's sinks down far deeper than most people here can even imagine. Another important aspect is the domino effect that might follow. If other coins see that Ethereum's POS switch is successful, they'll follow, which means even less demand for GPU's.

It might be a good moment to short these companies. The sole reason they wen't up significantly was because of crypto, and the sole reason they'll fall down hard will be because of crypto as well.

What of the ever increasing amount of ASICs out there for other coins? Even if there is another mining frenzy presumably more and more hardware manufacturers will be coming out with them or simply mining in secret.

Any GPU manufacturer would be bonkers to bet anything on future alt mining. It's so fickle and competitive that they could easily ruin themselves either by preparing for a run that never arrives or that run being taken over by better hardware.

I'd put my head down and concentrate on graphics and nothing but.

I´d do exactly the same if I was running Nvidia or AMD.
Maybe they have already reached a point of saturation with
the gaming market (I assume that the gaming market
is the biggest market for GPUs?) and are therefore
desperately looking for alternatives.

Anyway, it might not be a bad idea to look into shorting
these companies if they are faced with difficulties like this.

They should consider getting into Bitcoin mining in the future. Now it may seem too risky for them, but when Bitcoin will mature and it will become clear to everyone that it's not going to die, big companies should theoretically start joining its ecosystem. Bitcoin can really benefit from competition on the ASIC market, and I think Nvidia is one of the best candidates to challenge Bitmain.

I wonder if Bitcoin mining will ever settle into a respectable and sizeable part of any hardware company's roster.

Unlike anything consumer focused, mining as it stands is so ruthless, sketchy and manic I'd be more inclined to go the Samsung route and take the commission to manufacture chips and bits and let other retailers go hang themselves trying to sell the completed products.

It is absolutely amazing how quickly these companies can turn on a dime, when demands go down a little. The demand for GPUs for mining, should be seen as a new revenue source. If they cannot supply enough GPUs for high end computer users, because GPU miners are buying all these cards, then they should increase production.

The demand for GPUs are going down, because the price of mineable Alt coins are going down now and it is becoming less profitable to mine these coins.  ::)

This would be most likely the case which they havent consider out yet about the possible scenarios that would happen on next months. They might really believe that bull run or the trend do continue which they do plan out to have a specific GPU for mining and now the market falls then demand would be mainly affected because miners wont really tend to buy up GPU due to unprofitable issues.I believe they do learn out from their mistakes, they should rather focus on what they have started.

GPU mining is viable still,with ROI shifted from 6-10 months area in 206-2017 to 18-30 months in 2018
the thing is the shops must be overstocked now with the "mining edition" videocards
the ones with one or even no analogue video ports,hence they cannot be used to play games, just to mine
but NVidia and AMD can't and should not complain, made copious amounts of money from unsuspecting miners