Nvidia has announced that they expect sales of GPUs related to cryptocurrency mining to drop by about 67% in the current quarter. That's a pretty monstrous drop, and if mining investment is a leading indicator of overall market demand for crypto, it would follow that this decreased demand in mining equipment foretells decreased demand for crypto generally.
Nvidia's estimates could be inaccurate by a significant degree. Last month amazon was expected to post earnings of $1.24 per share. Their real earnings were $3.27 per share. There's a chance this could represent a new method of publishing anti crypto FUD and not have much relation to actual statistics.
Of course, there are other potential angles. Back in january 2018, it was reported a number of chinese bitcoin mining operations were forced to shut down:
China Quietly Orders Closing of Bitcoin Mining OperationsMove tightens a clampdown that already has shut exchanges for trading of cryptocurrencies in ChinaChinese authorities ordered the closing of operations that create a large share of the world’s supply of bitcoin, tightening a clampdown that has already shuttered exchanges for the trading of cryptocurrencies in China.
A multiagency government task force overseeing risks in Internet finance issued a notice last week ordering local authorities to “guide” the shutdown of operations that produce, or “mine,” cryptocurrencies, according to the notice and people familiar with the information.
While the notice called for an “orderly exit” without setting a deadline, far-flung areas of China where cryptocurrency mining operations have flourished are complying. A local regulatory official in the far western region Xinjiang said Wednesday that his agency received the notice and is doing “what the country wants.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-quietly-orders-closing-of-bitcoin-mining-operations-1515594021 China supposedly represents "78.9%" of all bitcoin mining. This type of across the board shutdown could have significant effects.
It is possible a deluge of crypto mining hardware is being dumped en masse as chinese mining operations fold. This could create a significant decrease in demand on increased supply, over the short term.
We know for certain the higher the price of bitcoin, the more lucrative and profitable it is to mine crypto. With the price of bitcoin rising near $10,000 mining operations become more profitable across the board. "A rising tide, lifts all ships." If the price of bitcoin rises above $10k demand for mining hardware should increase as the market becomes more profitable.
If chinese miners are dumping their hardware, resulting in overall lower hashrates, we could see a fall in mining difficulty which could also fuel demand for mining hardware.
Good topic OP. Hopefully we'll have some good replies in this thread. Would merit if I had any left to give.