Chip-making giant Nvidia’s (NVDA) stock is flashing a major bearish signal — the last time this pattern appeared, it retraced nearly 50%. This may raise questions for the AI crypto sector, which has, at times, seemed to react to Nvidia’s price.

“NVDA just formed a Death Cross for the first time since April 2022. The last one sent shares plunging 47% over the next 6 months,” markets data platform Barchart said in a March 23 X post. A death cross is a bearish signal that occurs when the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) of an asset’s market price falls below the 200-day SMA.

While Nvidia’s stock price formed the bearish signal before the trading week closed on March 21, several crypto AI tokens have risen since then. Render (RENDER) is up 4.06%, while Bittensor (TAO) and Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) are both up around 2.88%, according to CoinMarketCap data. 

Nvidia has been a closely watched stock for AI crypto traders in recent times. While some crypto analysts have linked AI crypto token surges to NVDA’s performance — like its nearly 70% rally ahead of Nvidia’s Q2 earnings in 2024 — there have also been times when no clear correlation emerged. 

After Nvidia’s Q1 2024 revenue jumped 18% from Q4 2023, some AI token traders seemed disappointed that the strong results didn’t lead to a similar move in AI crypto token prices.

Some crypto traders recently suggested that the bubble has burst and that only AI tokens with real utility will thrive. Crypto trader CryptoCosta said in a March 22 X post, “The whole AI hype has already died down, now it’s time for those who provide market solutions and have revenue.”

Over the past month alone, the market capitalization of the top AI and big data crypto tokens has fallen 23.70%.

The largest token in this sector by market cap, Near Protocol (NEAR), has retraced almost 59% over the past 12 months, now trading at $2.70.

However, in a recent survey, nearly half of crypto pundits said they are bullish over crypto AI tokens prices.

Of the 2,632 respondents surveyed by CoinGecko between February and March, 25% were “fully bullish,” and 19.3% indicated they were “somewhat bullish” for crypto AI tokens in 2025. 

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Around 29% of respondents were neutral on the subject, while a combined 26.3% were either somewhat bearish or bearish. 

Meanwhile, former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao recently said, “While crypto is the currency for AI, not every agent needs its own token.”

“Agents can take fees in an existing crypto for providing a service. Launch a coin only if you have scale. Focus on utility, not tokens,” he said.

In February, Sygnum said in an investment report, while AI agents have gained “remarkable traction” so far, they have “struggled to prove their worth beyond speculation.”

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