Nvidia can pay a $5.5 million high-quality to settle Safety and Trade Fee costs that it didn’t adequately disclose how a lot of its gaming enterprise’ gross sales had been truly associated to crypto mining.

In line with the SEC, Nvidia didn’t state in a pair of quarterly stories for its 2018 fiscal yr that gross sales associated to crypto mining accounted for a major a part of the leap in demand for its graphics processing models, which had been initially designed and marketed for gaming.

As a part of the settlement with the SEC, Nvidia did not admit or deny the findings. The corporate did not instantly return an e-mail from CNET searching for remark.

GPUs — used for PC gaming, video modifying and different graphics-intensive actions — grew to become arduous to trace down beginning a couple of years in the past as the value of key crypto currencies reached new highs. The cryptocurrencies are mined utilizing highly effective computer systems, usually outfitted with a number of GPUs.

In response, Nvidia final yr halved the hash fee of a number of of its graphics card fashions, making their GPUs much less environment friendly for crypto mining. It additionally launched new merchandise which are optimized for mining, with options designed to enhance energy effectivity and airflow, however that do not do graphics. 

In its Friday order, the SEC claims that Nvidia knew again in 2018 that its gaming gross sales development was was truly being pushed by doubtlessly extra risky crypto mining demand, but it surely did not disclose that as required.

The SEC additionally says that data Nvidia did give concerning the development of its gaming enterprise was “deceptive,” provided that the corporate did make statements about how different elements of its enterprise had been pushed by demand for crypto mining. That created a notion that its gaming enterprise wasn’t considerably affected by crypto mining, the SEC says.