Key Notes
- Japanese financial leader SoftBank has disclosed that it offloaded its NVIDIA stake.
- Moving forward, it plans to acquire more OpenAI stake in return for a crucial AI bet.
- AI-linked tokens like Bittensor and Theta are undergoing an intense selloff.
AI tokens are under intense selling pressure as Japanese banking giant SoftBank has dumped its NVIDIA stake to expand its position in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The plan is to bet as much as $40 billion on OpenAI’s path to profitability. This comes at a time when Wall Street investors are asking questions about whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) spending will pay off.
Second Time SoftBank Offloads NVIDIA
Back in October, SoftBank offloaded its entire 32.1 million-share Nvidia position for $5.83 billion. This marked the second time it was exiting its position in the AI chipmaker. It had initially bought a $4 billion stake in 2017 and sold it off in early 2019. The group later re-entered the NVIDIA ecosystem before offloading its position again in October.
According to a recent financial disclosure , the Japanese firm has decided to redirect its attention and capital to the popular ChatGPT-maker, OpenAI. In 2025, SoftBank offered to purchase $1.5 billion worth of OpenAI’s shares.
This means that OpenAI employees got a chance to sell their stake in the company at a unit price of $210 per share to SoftBank.
It is worth noting that the firm had earlier engaged in a $9.17 billion partial sale of its T-Mobile stake. This was also part of an “asset monetization” to fund the $40 billion investment in OpenAI by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, the sale of SoftBank’s NVIDIA stake coincides with the season that Wall Street questions how profitable AI infrastructure spending is.
OpenAI CEO Faces Legal Action, AI Tokens Price Dip
Also, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is currently facing scrutiny for publicly denying that he requested federal loan guarantees for AI infrastructure. Meanwhile, some sources stated that he sought this relief in an Oct. 27 letter to the White House, although the latter kindly refused the offer.
With the news of SoftBank’s offload of NVIDIA, quite a number of AI tokens are facing major selling pressure.
CoinMarketCap data show that Bittensor TAO $375.0 24h volatility: 0.5% Market cap: $3.60 B Vol. 24h: $205.69 M has lost 3.79% within the last 24 hours, and, currently trading at $372.41. Internet Computer INJ $7.74 24h volatility: 3.4% Market cap: $772.74 M Vol. 24h: $153.01 M has seen an even bigger loss of 8.69% and is currently trading at $6.46. Other top AI tokens like Injective BTC $103 358 24h volatility: 2.5% Market cap: $2.06 T Vol. 24h: $72.20 B and Theta THETA $0.48 24h volatility: 0.4% Market cap: $478.94 M Vol. 24h: $20.51 M also down 3.42% and 1.77%, respectively.
This drop reflects a similar trend in the broader crypto industry, whose market cap dropped by 1.4%.
next
