The fate of humanity hung in the balance on Wednesday afternoon in the US, where traders, ramblers and gamblers held their breath ahead of quarterly results from the “most important stock on planet Earth,” as Goldman’s Scott Rubner dubbed Nvidia.

The numbers topped estimates. Revenue of $22.1 billion was up 22% sequentially and a cartoonish 265% YoY. Consensus was looking for $20.41 billion. Recall that the original consensus for Q4 prior to the company’s guide in November was $17.9 billion. That gives you an idea of how quickly this continues to escalate.

Data center revenue of $18.4 billion rose more than 400% from the same period last year. Analysts were looking for $17.21 billion there. Gaming sales of $2.9 billion constituted a modest beat. The guide was likewise ahead of consensus. Wall Street wanted to hear $21.9 billion. Instead, Nvidia said Q1 sales will likely be $24 billion, plus or minus 2%.

“There is no doubt that demand for Nvidia’s products remains strong, but the numbers are so large now that even a mild 10% revenue beat is $2 billion,” JonesTrading’s Mike O’Rourke remarked. “One would think the market would need a minimum of a 10% upside guide to maintain the status quo.”

Nvidia got there. But at this point, it’s hard to say what the market was actually “expecting.” A lot more than consensus, that’s for sure. Maybe the actual numbers were good enough. Frankly, I don’t know. As O’Rourke put it, these kinds of beats “will become more and more challenging” going forward. Investors, he noted, are “well aware” of that.

Adjusted operating income in Q4 was easily ahead of estimates and margins beat. Nvidia sees adjusted gross margin of 77% for Q1, plus or minus 50bps, which means that even on the low end, they’d beat by 100bps. Consensus for the current quarter is (or was) 75.5%. Operating expenses (non-GAAP) in Q1 should be $2.5 billion, basically in line.

Needless to say, Jensen Huang thinks the outlook’s bright. Blindingly bright. “Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point,” he declared on Wednesday. “Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations.”

All in all, if you were determined to buy this thing after earnings, I don’t see much that would stop you. On the other hand (and as alluded to above), the bar for Nvidia is so high now that nobody really knows what a “beat” looks like. We know what a “beat” is versus published estimates. But at one point Wednesday, a headline described the US equity market as the “S&P 1.” What kind of guide justifies that?

Still, for all the bubble talk, the stock’s been more expensive than it was headed into Q4 results. As Bloomberg’s Tatiana Darie pointed out, rapid profit growth and expectations of more to come helped keep Nvidia’s multiple in check. Tesla’s more expensive, Darie noted. So’s Amazon. So’s Microsoft.

Options implied a near 11% move in either direction following earnings, suggesting Nvidia could compete for one of the largest single-session value creation (or destruction) events in US stock-market history on Thursday.

With around an hour to go before the company reported, a February 23, $1,300 strike call had traded more than 40,000 times, most of that attributable to buyers.