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It Is All About BTC, LTC, ETH, DOGE, KAS mining as well as other alternative crypto currencies
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Recently we have introduced to you JSEcoin – JavaScript Embeded Cryptocurrency for Webmasters as an interesting new project that uses JavaScript mining via the browser of users and that can be used to monetize website traffic. But another similar service has gotten much more attention lately as it was found to be used on The Pirate Bay (a torrent website) in the form of an embedded JS miner for Monero (XMR). The service in question is Coin Hive and it allows you users to embed JavaScript miners in their website as a side source of revenue, so the service in itself is not bad or evil or whatever. The problem with The Pirate Bay is that they have introduced the JavaScript code of the miner without letting any of the visitors know, so people started noticing that when they open the website their CPU load skyrockets and that is not fine.
The main problem we are seeing here with a service like that is when users don’t know that you are using their computing resources to mine, you need to tell them or offer them the choice to do it in order to support the website. The default example from Coin Hive does not come with any visual user interface or anything to let the users know there is a miner, but what if you give your visitors a link to click that will open up a page with a miner. They would be able to open up and control the miner as well as monitor it and have that page open and the miner running in order to support the website or the community they are a part of with their computing power. It is an interesting idea and a one that might actually work out well for some people, the problem however is that most of the users would be thinking along the way of abusing a service like that and making profit at the expense of some users. Still, if you find the project interesting and useful you might look into it, just make sure you tell your visitors what you are doing if you embed it on a website in order not to have negative, instead of positive results!
Apart from the embeddable web-based miner using JavaScript the CoinHive service offers some other interesting alternatives to more traditional services such as a Proof of Work Shortlinks service as well as Proof of Work Captcha. Both of these user actual mining of a certain number of hashes before allowing you to forward you to a certain link or to confirm that you are a human and not a bot. Using Proof of Work (mining) for more common things that normally utilize different approaches can actually be a interesting way to improve and yet at the same time monetize some aspects from an already working service. In short you might want to think outside of the box and think of new ways to use crypto mining in a way that you may even reward users for doing the “heavy lifting” in an existing web-based game or a social network for example. Of course computing hashes in a browser with JavaScript is not the most efficient way to do things, especially compared to optimized mining software. We have played around with the miner and the extra PoW-based services available, though do note that we have not embedded this miner into the website here and we would not do it without warning you should we decide to test it live for example.
– For more details and to check out the CoinHive JavaScript web-based Monero (XMR) miner…
Last year we have tested and reviewed the FutureBit MoonLander USB Scrypt ASIC Miner and have found it to be a well-designed and working miner. Unfortunately with hashrate maxing at just about 1 MHS at that time it was not very up to date for practical use with mining profitability in mind. The good news is that there is a new version of the miner in the works – FutureBit Moonlander 2 and the new device will be more interesting specifications wise.
The FutureBit Moonlander 2 USB Scrypt ASIC miner is supposedly offering an efficiency of about 1.3 Watts per MHS and the device should be capable of delivering between 3 and 5 megahashes for Scrypt mining (depending on settings). With the recent peak of the interest in Litecoin we could be seeing increased interest in these devices as well. The new version of the USB Scrypt ASIC should most likely be available for orders in October with deliveries starting at the end of October or early November. The price is not yet fixed, but it will most likely be in the range of $40-$60 USD per miner.
Preliminary specifications of the miner:
– Hashrate: 3-5 MHS Scrypt performance per miner
– Power usage: about 1.5W per MHS for most of that range
– Operating frequency: core clock from 500 MHz to nearly 1 GHz!
– Operating voltage: fully customizable core voltage range from 0.6V – 1V
– Fully redesigned 5v->core voltage stage with about 95% efficiency
– Heavy duty/over speced parts were used to ensure wide range of operation (stick can be pushed to nearly 6mh if you can cool it)
– Status LEDs for power, TX and RX transmission
– Uses latest bfgminer 5.4 for control
– Will work with all Mac OS, Linux, and Windows based PCs, as well as RPi’s etc (and I will be offering easy to use pre-compiled binaries)
– For more information about the FutureBit Moonlander 2 USB Scrypt ASIC miner…
The Minebox project has been announced a while ago as an interesting solution that combines a NAS device for storing your own data with a blockchain powered cryptocurrency for storing other user’s data on your free and unused space and earning money for doing that. Minebox relies on affordable Enterprise grade hardware from HP, namely the HP MicroServer that we’ve covered before as an interesting choice in regards to use with SiaCoin and Storj for example. So we were not surprised that this project has decided to go for the particular hardware from HP and extend the base NAS functionality with support for SiaCoin (SC) “mining” by renting your currently unused space. It is definitely an interesting idea, buying hardware that you can use for file storage and at the same time it may even pay for itself thanks to renting the unused resources such as free hard drive space over time.
If Minebox picks up a lot os user interest and we believe that it has the potential to do so, then it might spark the interest in other companies that are specializing already in more feature rich NAS solutions to integrate blockchain-powered services as well as a part of their portfolio. We are talking about companies such as Asustor, Qnap, Synology and others that may decide to add support for their products to rent unused space and allow the owners of the hardware to get paid for that thanks to support for SiaCoin or Storj or maybe something else…
Minebox has announced that it will start a presale of the MineBox NAS hardware starting next week – February 6th, apparently using ShapeShift as a partner for the payment with Bitcoin and other altcoins. Though not much details about the presale or when the actual devices will start to ship is yet available, hopefully it will be soon. It is interesting to see if there will also be a software only solution also available for more advanced users that may be interested in building their own devices or adding it on existing HP Proliant Microservers they may own. So far it is more likely tha Minebox will be sticking to providing users with the complete solution of hardware and software together, though you should still be able to upgrade your initial hardware such as adding more hard drives for example.
Minebox 8TB Specifications:
– HP Model: HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 G1610T
– HP Model version: 819185-001
– Processor: Intel Celeron G1610T 2.4GHz
– Processor cores: 2 cores
– Cache Memory: 2MB (1x2MB) L3 cache
– Memory: 4GB (1x4GB) PC3L-128000E DDR3 UDIMM
– Network controller: HPE Ethernet 1Gb 2-port 332i Adapter
– Storage controller: HPE Dynamic Smart Array B129i Controller
– Hard Drive: 8TB (2x4TB) Western Digital Caviar Red
– Internal storage: 4 LFF NHP-SATA HDD CAGE
– PCI-Express slots: 1 standard (1-Low Profile) PCIe 2.0
– Power supply: 150W
– Fans: One (1) Non-redundant system fan ships standard
– Operating System: xOS 1.0
– Form factor: Ultra Micro Tower
– Warranty: 1-year parts
– Size: 23.8 x 45.6 x 47.9 cm
– You can get more details about the Minebox project on its official website here…