It’s brought headaches to Nvidia.

$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ The growth of crypto mining has been a boon to Nvidia in recent years, but it’s also brought headaches.

The firm’s powerful processors designed to handle video-game graphics are considered well-suited for mining cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin -- and it’s been hard to tell what task customers are buying the products for.

A surge in demand for graphics chips -- fueled in part by the crypto craze -- led to a run-up in 2017. But that windfall was short-lived, and the following year the company slashed annual sales forecasts to below analysts’ estimates. The disappointment caused investors to dump the stock, resulting in a 20% decline over two trading days.