Key Takeaways
- Nvidia’s support for open-source AI models could be at odds with efforts to restrict their development and use.
- Bitcoin developers have faced similar legal battles over open-source software, including Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet.
- Nvidia’s future stance and Roman Storm’s retrial could shape the debate over open-source development.
Although Huang announced his resignation, an undisclosed person familiar with the matter told CNBC that the board had decided the night before to oust him. Meanwhile, as media outlets report on his alleged mistresses, no public evidence has been presented that one was a Chinese spy. Online commenters claim the change “would be very very bad for the open model cause in the US.”
Pro-Open-Source CEO
Under Huang, Nvidia put money and political weight behind open-source AI models, which anyone can download, modify, and run on their own computers. Most of these “open-weight” models make the trained model available but do not publish all the training data and code. (In contrast, Bitcoin’s code is fully public.)
Meanwhile, with some of its own models, such as Nemotron 3 Super, Nvidia released open weights along with datasets and training recipes. In March, Wired reported that, over the next five years, Nvidia will spend $26 billion on open-source AI models. In September this year, Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face, the open-source model repository, for $12.93 billion.
Many X users are now sharing Huang’s first-ever post from July 24, speculating that the timing of his departure, a few months after the post, was no coincidence. In that post, Huang shared an open letter backed by 25 companies defending open models. The letter urged lawmakers to avoid “premature restrictions on open models that stifle competition or drive innovation overseas.” Huang himself wrote that “open models strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty.”
This position also serves a business interest. As the biggest AI labs build their own chips to reduce their dependence on Nvidia, support for open-source AI helps the company sell more chips to governments, businesses, and anyone who wants to own their own models.
Closed-Source Lobbying at Work Worldwide
In September this year, Nvidia warned that “other parties are actively lobbying the U.S. government and other stakeholders worldwide to adopt legislative or regulatory measures that would restrict or disadvantage open-source models and the customers of them.”
Additionally, in July, Axios reported that some U.S. officials were considering banning U.S. companies from using Chinese open-weight models. Meanwhile, Congress is still considering two bills, the Chip Security and AI Overwatch acts, that aim to control chip exports and prevent smuggling. Huang was the chip industry’s leading advocate for fewer restrictions on chip sales.
Bitcoin and Crypto Asset Parallels
The fight over open AI models now resembles the yearslong battle that Bitcoin and other crypto asset developers have waged over open-source software, often against regulators and prosecutors invoking national security arguments.
For example, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned open-source coin mixer Tornado Cash in August 2022, saying more than $7 billion had been laundered through it, including by North Korean hackers. A federal appeals court ruled the sanctions unlawful in November 2024, and Treasury lifted them in March 2025.
Separately, a jury convicted Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm in August 2025 of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. He still faces a retrial on unresolved money laundering and sanctions charges.
Meanwhile, the co-founders of Samourai Wallet, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, pleaded guilty to conspiring to run an unlicensed money transmitting business. They received prison sentences of five and four years, respectively, in Nov. 2025.
However, the U.S. Department of Justice now says prosecutors will no longer approve charges under that statute against developers of decentralized, non-custodial software. This policy is not binding, and money laundering and sanctions cases remain in scope. Despite this policy, the crypto asset industry continues to fight to protect open-source developers from criminal charges based solely on writing code.
‘Get to Work Everyone’
Now, as players in both the crypto asset and AI industries emphasize the importance of open source development, crypto asset investor and Venice AI founder Erik Voorhees urged both sides to “get to work.” A meme Voorhees shared presented encryption, decentralization, and open source as means “to avoid Orwelian panopticon dystopia.”
“Care about safety? Safety is best achieved through transparency (open-source), and the decentralization of power. Care about equality? Equality is the first exile of any licensing regime,” he said in a separate post, reacting to Nvidia’s drama, and reminding his followers that “AI is power” and “politicians seek to control power.”
As Bitcoin.com News reported, Bitcoin bull Jack Dorsey, the CEO and founder of Block, has also called for open AI. In September, he said that neither the U.S. nor Chinese governments should decide “how much intelligence everyone else is allowed to develop,” as this would “leave most of the world waiting for permission.” In March, he responded “this would be excellent” to news of Nvidia’s $26 billion open-model plan.
Both industries—AI and crypto—will continue to wage their own battles over open-source and closed-source software. In AI, the industry will be watching Huang’s congressional testimony, expected in December, and whether Nvidia changes its stance toward open-source models following his departure. In the crypto asset industry, lobbyists are working to protect open-source developers, while the industry will also closely watch Roman Storm’s retrial in April 2027. The case could set an important precedent for open-source developers.
