Nvidia's CEO told staff he was unfaithful. Tokenized Nvidia stock fell 7% at the open

What Nvidia said

On Sunday, November 8, Nvidia published a note from founder and CEO Jensen Huang titled "A Message to Our Company." In it he wrote: "I was unfaithful to my wife." He added, "There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry," and asked for privacy for his family.

Huang referred to "national security concerns raised in news reports" and wrote that "NVIDIA's Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation." He said he supports it and will cooperate fully. "I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence," he wrote.

The board's statement, also dated November 8, says the investigation follows recent reporting that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. A committee of independent directors, helped by outside counsel, will run it. The board says it has no reason to believe that national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, that it will look at all available information, and that it has confidence in Huang and his leadership team.

Rumor vs record

• Unverified: that the woman involved is a Chinese intelligence asset. This comes from news reports. Nvidia's memo and board statement do not say it, and we could not confirm it from an official source. Nvidia's board speaks only of reporting about "a foreign intelligence effort."
• False on the record so far: that Huang has stepped down. Neither statement says so. Huang writes that he is "fully committed" to Nvidia, and the board says it has confidence in him while the review runs.
• Too early to say: whether any Nvidia secrets were exposed. The board says it has "no reason to believe" they were compromised, but its investigation has only just started.

Wall Street was shut. The tokens were not

Nvidia shares do not trade on Sundays. Tokenized versions of the stock do, around the clock, on blockchains. The biggest by CoinGecko rank is NVDAx, issued by xStocks. Its five-minute price data show it flat near $187 to $188 for most of Sunday, then a slide that started after 3 p.m. ET:

• 3:00 p.m. ET: $188.13
• 4:00 p.m. ET: $183.70
• 7:00 p.m. ET: $179.83
• 8:30 p.m. ET: $179.26, the low, down 4.7% from 3 p.m.
• 9:25 p.m. ET: $181.37

Ondo's tokenized Nvidia, NVDAON, moved the same way and stood at $181.09, down 3.2% in 24 hours.

Trading picked up sharply. CoinGecko put NVDAx's 24-hour volume at about $14.4 million at 9:25 p.m. ET, against about $2.4 million at 1 p.m. ET the same day. Volume is still small next to the real stock, so a thin weekend market can swing more than shares will when Nasdaq opens.

AI tokens: no group sell-off

Crypto tokens tied to AI did not move together. CoinGecko's 24-hour changes at 9:25 p.m. ET:

• Akash (AKT): minus 3.0%, at $0.611
• Bittensor (TAO): minus 0.7%, at $219.16
• Fetch.ai (FET): minus 0.5%, at $0.1426
• Render (RENDER): plus 3.0%, at $1.58

So far the move is in the tokens that track Nvidia itself, not in the wider AI corner of crypto.

Update: after Monday's open

Updated Monday, November 9, 10:10 a.m. ET. Nasdaq opened at 9:30 a.m. ET. We could not read Nasdaq's own quote data or the ETF issuers' holdings files this run, so the figures below come from tokenized shares on CoinGecko, which track the real stock while the market is open. We will add the exchange and issuer figures when we can read them.

NVDAx, compared with $186.96 at the Friday, November 6, 4 p.m. ET close:

• 9:30 a.m. ET Monday: $173.39, down 7.3%, its lowest five-minute reading of the morning
• 10:00 a.m. ET: $178.44
• 10:05 a.m. ET: $178.08, down 4.8%

So the token dipped further at the opening bell, then won back most of that drop within half an hour. Its 24-hour volume reached about $29.4 million, roughly double the Sunday night figure.

The wider tech market went the other way. QQQx, xStocks' tokenized version of the Invesco QQQ fund that tracks the Nasdaq 100, was at $674.51 at 10:05 a.m. ET, up 2.4% from $658.39 at Friday's close. A Nasdaq 100 fund rising while the Nvidia token fell suggests the selling was aimed at Nvidia, not at tech as a whole.

AI crypto tokens still showed no group move. CoinGecko's 24-hour changes at 10:05 a.m. ET: Bittensor (TAO) minus 0.8% at $223.88, Akash (AKT) minus 2.6% at $0.612, Fetch.ai (FET) plus 2.5% at $0.1453, and Render (RENDER) plus 2.7% at $1.59.

What to watch

The rest of Monday's session will show whether Nvidia shares hold near the morning's level. Nvidia's board says it will give further updates on its independent investigation as appropriate. We will add Nasdaq's own price data and ETF issuers' Nvidia weights for funds such as SMH and QQQ once we can read them.

What's next

• Nvidia's closing price on Monday, November 9, against Friday's close
• Updates from Nvidia's board on the independent investigation
• Whether NVDAx and other tokenized Nvidia shares stay in line with the real stock