At AMD's Q1 earnings call last night, the company revealed that it expects to report revenues of $3.45 billion for the first quarter of 2021, up 93% from the same period last year. AMD's Computing and Graphics division (where all the money from juicy component purchases will be spent) increased to $2.1 billion from $1.438 billion last year, and its operating income rose to $485 million from $262 million.

Such growth is not surprising given the strong demand for hardware. However, as the earnings call entered its normal Q&A session, the company's CEO, Lisa Su, seemed stumped as to how much of that profit came from the cryptocurrency mining business.

During the Q&A with Vivek Arya, an analyst at BofA Securities (formerly Bank of America Merrill Lynch), Lisa Su was asked about the impact of increased profits from cryptocurrencies:

"I was asked about cryptocurrencies. They asked about cryptocurrencies, but we deal very little with cryptocurrencies. So this is really a foundational business, really, it's a new product, and we just see customers adopting it and getting up and running quickly."

This minor hesitation may indicate a shaky grasp of the situation. Basically, AMD has little way to measure how much cryptocurrency mining is impacting its bottom line. Thus, it is difficult to identify a specific value at present because it is not possible to distinguish between real gaming GPU sales and miner sales.

The surge in cryptocurrency profitability may be just the wrong time, or the right time for some professions. Still, supply shortages in light of the global pandemic have formed a precarious foundation for meeting the increased demand for PC components in general.

Despite being confident that cryptocurrency mining would not affect the availability of gaming cards, Nvidia began dangling a line of mining-specific CMP SKUs to keep crypto miners away from their precious gaming GPUs. The popularity of these new mining cards has surprised Nvidia, and to underscore its attempt to separate the will of the user, the company may even implement a mining limiter across its lineup of 30-series graphics cards to help steer miners in the right direction.

As a result of all this, Nvidia will now know exactly where the profits are coming from.

AMD's stance is that it will not restrict any workloads, including cryptocurrency mining, a measure that AMD has not hinted it will explore soon. However, the company's failure to follow through also means that it has nothing to say when asked tough questions about cryptocurrency mining.

Today, transparency is important in the business world. With the popularity and controversy surrounding cryptocurrencies unlikely to subside anytime soon, perhaps it is time for AMD to push for greater clarity about the source of its funds.