Crypto Mining Blog

If you are getting into crypto mining using a smartphone for coins such as VerusCoin (VRSC) you should be extra careful what “mining hardware” or a smartphone you are picking up to use. One would normally assume that nowadays even the cheap smartphones would do just fine for crypto mining provided that they do come with recent Android OS versions (mining on Apple iOS devices is pretty much a no go) and decent 64-bit hardware in terms of ARM-based processors with 4 or even 8 cores available. Even sub $100 USD phones nowadays normally do manage to give you at least that, but it is not always the case as you should get to understand now…

As far as smartphones that will be used for mining you don’t really need expensive hardware and even a locked phone will do as you will not need to use it for phone calls and the Samsung Galaxy A03s locked phones can usually be relatively easily found in the $50-$60 USD range. Although often there are offers for these Tracfone Samsung Galaxy A03s, 32GB, Black – Prepaid Smartphone (Locked) for $29.99 USD (Ad) and it doesn’t get cheaper than that for a mining smartphone. With such good deals for lower-end models one would assume that a slightly more expensive device such as the Total by Verizon Samsung Galaxy A13 5G, 64GB, Black – Prepaid Smartphone (Locked) for $80 USD (Ad) would still work just fine for mining and will be able to offer better performance thanks to the improved hardware it comes equipped with. Well, you would think so, but the harsh reality would be much different and in fact you should avoid buying the Samsung Galaxy A13 5G if you are planning to use the device for crypto mining and you will know exactly why in a moment.

The Samsung Galaxy A13 5G smartphone has been released at the end of 2011, while the Galaxy A03s was released earlier the same year. Both devices feature 8-core 64-bit ARM processors, though they are slightly different models. While the mor affordable A03s is equipped with a Mediatek MT6765 Helio P35 (12nm) chipset utilizing 4x 2.35 GHz Cortex-A53 and 4x 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU cores, the more powerful A13 5G relies on a Mediatek MT6833 Dimensity 700 (7 nm) chipset using 2x 2.2 GHz Cortex-A76 and 6x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 CPU cores. The Galaxy A13 5G has the faster and more power efficient hardware inside, but that goes only as far as the hardware is concerned. The problem with this particular device is that it does not use the right kernel and operating system version and that is what essentially makes it unsuitable for crypto mining and in general making it unusable with some applications that you might normally use on other smartphones that require an operating system running in 64-bit mode.

The issue with the Samsung Galaxy A13 5G is that when queried with lscpu it reports that the Architecture is armv8l and while the CPU hardware itself is a 64-bit ARMv8 and supports 64-bit operating system, what you are getting on this device is a kernel that is built to run on an ARMv8 chip in its 32-bit mode. That essentially means that while you do have 64-bit hardware, you are not able to use it with 64-bit applications (like crypto miners) as they will either not run at all (they are compiled to run on 64-bit hardware) or they may run with significantly reduced performance in 32-bit mode if they are built like that. In either case – the A13 5G is not good for crypto mining… and it is not because of the hardware of the device, but it is because of the decision from Samsung to use 32-bit software on the device for some reason, while the lower-end and less expensive Galaxy A03s for example is utilizing the proper 64-bit software.

Here is what will happen if you try to install the VerusMiner.apk on the Samsung Galaxy A13 5G smartphone, you will get an error message saying that “App not installed as app isn’t compatible with your phone”. The reason for that is that the VerusMiner application for Android does require you to have a 64-bit OS to install and run and on the A13 5G you do not meet this requirement and there is nothing you can do to update your Samsung phone from 32-bit Android to 64-bit Android even though the hardware inside does support 64-bit software.

Pretty much the same thing is expected going the longer way. Installing UserLand, Debian and trying to get the optimized ARM version of ccminer from Oink70 to run will result in the compiled miner not able to start at all as it also does require 64-bit software along with the 64-bit hardware you have and you do not have a 64-bit kernel/OS available on the Samsung Galaxy A13 5G.

Trying some other miners, you actually might get lucky if they are compatible with 32-bit Android, but even if you do manage to run the mining software in this mode on the Galaxy A13 5G the hashrate you will be getting on it is at least a few times lower than what the same hardware should be capable of providing in a 64-bit OS environment. This essentially makes the Galaxy A13 5G as a very inefficient miner power wise and again makes it pointless to try and use the device for crypto mining. So, again, do not buy Samsung Galaxy A13 5G smartphones for crypto mining purposes as they will only waste your time, go for an alternative like the A03s or another model that is verified to supports aarch64 or arm64 architecture for both hardware and software!