Bitcoin and crypto market losses deepen after Jensen Huang's resignation

• Bitcoin dropped below $72,000. The decline followed Jensen Huang's resignation as Nvidia President and CEO.
• Following Huang's immediate exit from its leadership, Nvidia named CFO Colette Kress interim CEO.
• Over 5% was wiped off AI tokens, with NEAR, Bittensor, Render and Pearl posting declines of 7% to 12%.

Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below $72,000. Thursday's losses deepened across the broader crypto market after Jensen Huang stepped down as President and CEO of Nvidia (NVDA). Following the news, Ethereum (ETH) touched $1,990 briefly before rebounding to $2,000. Losses for BNB, XRP and Solana (SOL) also stand at 4%, 2.8% and 3%, respectively.

Coinglass data put liquidations triggered by the move at $719.9 million over the past 24 hours. Long positions accounted for the bulk of that total, at $642.2 million.

Nvidia names new leadership after Huang steps down

Adding to the selling pressure, Nvidia confirmed Jensen Huang's resignation from his roles as President, CEO and board member.

Colette Kress, currently Nvidia's executive vice president and CFO, was named interim CEO by the board pending its search for a permanent successor. She will continue to oversee finance until a new chief executive takes office.

Colette Kress said: “Nvidias strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,”

Internal and external candidates will be considered in the board's search. In a separate appointment, Harvey C. Jones became Nvidia's first-ever chairman of the board.

Jones said: “Colette has helped lead Nvidia through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position,”

The resignation comes amid mounting controversy over Huang's reported relationships with three women. They include Chinese businesswoman Huang Le, whom US authorities suspect of having links to Chinese intelligence. Other unverified reports linked Huang to Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's Vice President of Healthcare, and another Nvidia employee.

After Jensen previously acknowledged the affair with Powell, Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation into the allegations. Its official announcement did not explicitly cite the controversy as the reason for his exit.

At the time of writing, Nvidia shares are down 5.8%, trading at $163.60.

AI tokens deepen declines alongside Nvidia shares

A 5.6% decline over the past 24 hours left the AI token category underperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum. Nvidia's latest announcement intensified the pressure, with several leading tokens adding to their losses.

Among major AI-related cryptocurrencies, NEAR Protocol (NEAR) led the declines with a 10% fall, compared with a 7% drop for Bittensor (TAO). Render (RENDER) shed 8%. Pearl (PEARL) registered the steepest fall, at 12%.

These declines left AI-related tokens among the crypto market's weakest-performing categories over the period.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin has rebounded to $71,500 but remains down 3.7% over the past 24 hours.