The short version
- Nvidia earnings are due Tuesday, November 17, at about 21:20 UTC, the first report since Jensen Huang resigned and CFO Colette Kress became interim CEO.
- The NVDA perp on Hyperliquid is down 10.8% at $155.60 with about $553 million in open interest, while AI tokens TAO and RENDER fell 7% to 8%.
- The bar is Nvidia’s own guidance of $108 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2%, with gross margins around 74%.
- Next: whether the perp can get back above the $164.27 52-week low before Tuesday. Follow Base Camp on X for the numbers when they hit.
$553 million. That is how much is riding on the NVDA perp on Hyperliquid, five days before the first Nvidia earnings report without Jensen Huang.
Huang resigned as CEO on Thursday, and Nvidia reports on Tuesday, November 17, with its finance chief running the company. The NVDA perp trades at $155.60 at the time of writing, down 10.8% in 24 hours. Bitcoin sits at $72,378, and AI tokens are bleeding harder than both. So what should crypto traders actually watch between now and Tuesday?
Nvidia’s newsroom posted the leadership change before the US open:
NVIDIA announces CEO transition. Read the release: nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-an…
When Are Nvidia Earnings, and Who Is on the Call?
The Nvidia earnings date is Tuesday, November 17, with results at about 21:20 UTC (4:20 p.m. in New York) and the call at 22:00 UTC (5:00 p.m. in New York). Nvidia confirmed both times in Thursday’s release, “as previously scheduled.”
The voice on that call changes. Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer, is now interim CEO and keeps the CFO job until the board names a permanent successor. In practice the person who usually reads out the numbers will also have to answer for the company’s direction. Harvey C. Jones, the former Synopsys CEO, becomes the board’s first-ever chair.
The board is trying to calm things down. Jones said it expects “operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.” The release gives no reason for Huang’s exit, no timeline for the search, and no update to guidance.
That guidance is the number to hold Nvidia to. In August, Nvidia guided third-quarter revenue to $108 billion, plus or minus 2%, with gross margins around 74%. Second-quarter revenue was $96.2 billion.
Wall Street isn’t questioning demand so much as the leadership. Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon cut Nvidia to Market Perform on Thursday and halved his price target to $200 from $400, pointing to leadership uncertainty rather than orders. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put a price on Huang himself a few hours before the announcement:
We expect Jensen to be removed as CEO of Nvidia at this point and it’s in the Board’s hands. We see the stock valuation at $225 without Jensen ($300 with Jensen as CEO). At this point, writing on the wall for Street as stock will now bake in Nvidia without Jensen going forward 👇
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Why Nvidia Earnings Matter for Bitcoin and AI Tokens
Because crypto has traded like a leveraged AI stock all autumn. The chain runs like this:
- Weak Nvidia numbers or vague guidance = the AI trade cracks further.
- AI trade cracks = Nasdaq risk-off, the same mood that has kept money leaving Bitcoin ETFs.
- Risk-off = pressure on Bitcoin, and even more on the AI tokens that trade as Nvidia proxies.
The last link is already visible. Bittensor (TAO) is down 7.2% in 24 hours at $206.39, and Render (RENDER), a network that rents out GPU power, has dropped 8.3% to $1.4700. Bitcoin is down 1.9% over the same stretch. Ethereum is at $2,009.65, down 2.3%.
SIDE TRAIL: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Resigns: Colette Kress Steps In as NVDA Perps Slide 10% on Hyperliquid
The ETF side was soft before any of this. US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $299.8 million on Wednesday, their fifth red day in a row. Bitcoin also trades under its 200-day moving average (MA), the average of the last 200 daily closes, which sits at $73,142 on Binance.
Not every chip name is falling with Nvidia, though. On Hyperliquid, the AMD perp is up 2.7% and Broadcom is up about 1%, while the broader semiconductor ETF perp (SMH) is down 3.6%. In other words, traders are selling Nvidia’s leadership risk while some of its rivals get a bid.
NVDA Perp Levels to Watch Before Nov 17
Under the stock’s 52-week low, with heavy leverage piled on. The NVDA perp on trade.xyz traded $1.53 billion in 24 hours, and open interest stands at about $553 million. For context, it was roughly $91 million on November 7.
Funding is positive at about 0.0055% an hour, close to 48% a year, so longs are paying shorts to keep their bets on a bounce. That is a crowded side going into a binary event, and some of the biggest dip buyers are already out. Lookonchain caught one whale throwing in the towel on Thursday:
Whale 0xc8b5 has finally given up, closing his long on 190,952 $NVDA ($30.67M) at a $2.45M loss.
x.com/lookonchain/st…
The perp never closes, so these levels will be tested over the weekend while Nasdaq is shut:
- The ceiling: $164.27. Nvidia’s 52-week low on Nasdaq, now overhead. Getting back above it before Tuesday would make Thursday look like a one-day panic.
- The floor: $154.27. Thursday’s low on the perp. A daily close under it would mark a fresh low for this slide, with no recent support underneath.
- The far line: about $213. Both the 50-day and 200-day MAs sit there, so a full recovery is a story for another month.
A word of caution on perps over Nvidia earnings. The report drops after the Nasdaq close, but the perp reacts within seconds, and a 10% gap is enough to wipe out a 10x position before most traders can react. Size for the gap, not for the chart.
TRAIL MAP: Risk Management and Position Sizing
Inside or Outside Pick: Who Does Polymarket Expect?
An insider, narrowly. On the Polymarket “Next CEO of NVIDIA?” market, Kress leads at 26.5% and Ian Buck, who leads Nvidia’s hyperscale and high-performance computing business, is close behind at 25.5%. The rules say an interim CEO doesn’t count, so Kress only wins if the board makes her role permanent.
Outsiders are far behind. Arm’s Rene Haas sits at 4.2% and AMD’s Lisa Su at 2.5%. The whole market has traded about $172,000, so a few big orders can still move it.
Why the difference matters for the tape:
- An internal pick = continuity. The roadmap the board promised stays with people who built it, which markets would likely read as a relief.
- An outside pick = a reset. A new boss could change priorities or reset expectations, and that uncertainty is exactly what Bernstein is pricing.
The board hasn’t given a date, so a name could drop before earnings, during the call, or months later. Until then, every answer Kress gives on Tuesday about strategy will be read as a hint.
What decides the week is simpler than the drama. If Nvidia hits $108 billion and holds its margin, the leadership story becomes a governance story, and the perp has room to repair. If it misses, Bitcoin and the AI tokens are likely to feel it within the same hour, at 21:20 UTC on Tuesday.
Teddy has been trading crypto since 2016. The focus is altcoins and EMA setups: finding coins sitting on key levels, waiting for support to hold or a range to be reclaimed, and trading the move from there. Bitcoin sets the tone, but the opportunities are usually in the alts.
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