Mining cryptocurrencies with your smartphone? It is possible, and even very easy!

We hear a lot about crypto-currencies these last years, these very speculative virtual currencies. To get them, it is possible to buy them, or to “make” them, the term used being “mining”. If for some of them, a very large hardware configuration is necessary, others require much less resources, so it is possible to mine cryptocurrencies with your smartphone. How to do it, and is it profitable? Let’s study it more closely…

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The soaring price of Bitcoin makes you dizzy…

Crypto-currencies are the talk of the town. It must be said that the best known of them, Bitcoin, is a dream: when it was launched in October 2009, Bitcoin was valued at $0.001. A few days ago, a Bitcoin was worth more than $65,000. Imagine if someone had put in $10 at launch, their prize pool today would be valued at $650 million! This is how we could witness some very nice stories of complete strangers becoming billionaires. Even without going that far back: a year ago, during the first containment, the stock market and even cryptocurrencies collapsed in the face of the uncertainty of the situation. One Bitcoin was trading at around $3500. Against $65,000 just a few days ago, which will have made a very nice capital gain to those who invested a year ago.

Cryptocurrencies were originally launched to decentralize money and not to depend on a central bank or governments. Everyone could contribute to create cryptocurrency, which could be exchanged very easily. Even better, everyone could contribute to produce it or to secure the transactions via the Blockchain, pocketing in the process some rewards for the work done (“Proof of Work” in particular). But nowadays, it is very difficult to “mine” (make) crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Etherum for example, because it requires large hardware configurations and a phenomenal consumption of electricity to power this type of hardware. Since computer processors are no longer sufficient, many have resorted to multiplying video cards, as their combined power is much higher. But many have switched to Asics, machines specially designed to mine cryptocurrencies (expensive, and greedy, with a power consumption around 2000w …)

At present, cryptocurrency mining has become a full-fledged industry: software has been developed specifically for mining, and miners have invested in mining devices that increase profitability and mining in pools. A mining pool is a simple practice of pooling the processing power of multiple computers to solve crypto-currency transaction blocks.

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A mining farm. Source: KNCMiner

As a result, the mining of the most important crypto-currencies is now in the hands of big companies with big material resources, warehouses full of Asics, and very low electricity prices in order to be profitable. For the “power to the people”, we’ll see…

Fortunately, some people have realized that this principle was a real ignominy, at a time when we talk about being careful with the planet. As a result, new mining systems have appeared, such as the CHIA, which is no longer based on computing power, but on disk space (which is currently leading to a price explosion on large hard disks in China…).

Other methods even allow you to simply mine cryptocurrencies with your smartphone.

Mining crypto-currencies with your smartphone may seem unthinkable when you know the requirements for Bitcoin or etherum for example. However, it is quite possible, and several projects have been underway for quite some time now. In most cases, a few minutes spent on the application allows to validate transactions on the BlockChain. With the number of users growing every day, that’s millions of transactions that can be validated every day.

In this field, I have been able to use 4 different applications, whose projects are more or less advanced. And that’s exactly the point: by joining these projects now, the gains can still be very interesting. You should know that most crypto-currencies apply what is called a “halving”: at certain predefined periods, the earnings from mining are divided by two. Thus, the more time passes, the more difficult it will be to produce this virtual currency.

Bee Network: my favorite application

The name Bee Network is inspired by the concept of Hive Mind from the famous publication Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World by Kevin Kelly. Hive Mind is like a metaphor for the hive mind given its structure: there is a division of labor in which each bee has its role and responsibility, and they all work together systematically and spontaneously to ensure the smooth functioning of the hive without a central authority. This ecosystem is also referred to as a distributed system whose productivity relies on thousands of individual inputs.

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Bee Network is a new blockchain innovation that provides a fun experience for users to earn Bees, right from your phone. By taking on the roles of Miner, Sponsor and Verifier, Bee Network “players” earn rewards in the form of Bees. In order to give value to the Bees, Bee Network is specifically designed as a network of serious people, which allows players to exchange goods, services and skills in real life with their Bee balance and subsequently register Bee in major crypto-currency markets to be exchanged for fiat currency.

You can consult his white paper to have the details of the project.

Currently the project is in its phase 2, and is therefore not yet listed on cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Coinbase for example. It is therefore impossible to know how much a Bee will be quoted. But the organizers hope to launch the final phase by the end of the year.

The project exceeded 10 million users on March 30, which led to a halving. Thus, if at the beginning of the project it was possible to “mine” 1.6 Bee per hour, the output is now only 0.2 Bee per hour. Well, that still makes 4.8 bees per day. This rate will be maintained until 100 million users are reached, which should still leave some margin. After that the output will drop to 0.1 Bee / hour, then 0 when the project will have reached 1 billion users. So there is still time to participate!

This output can be increased by creating teams (by inviting your family and friends).

As for the functioning, it is quite simple: you just have to go to the application once every 24 hours to click on a button to start mining. You can then leave the application without any problem. It does not consume any battery or data.

To participate in this project you just need to install the Bee application on your smartphone and create your account, indicating my sponsor code “cedriclocqueneux”, because it is only possible to join the project via a sponsorship. You will join my team of miners, but you can also create your own. Note that the application is entirely in French, and rather pleasant to use. It’s my favorite 🙂

Pi Networks: a very active community

Pi Network is very similar to Bee, both in the motivation of the project and in the way it works, which does not require the app to be open, and does not consume batteries or data. It is not new, since we see it appearing as early as 2018.

You can read his white paper here to get the details of the project.

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Currently in phase 2 as well, with more than 14 million users, the project has had several “halving”, so that the output is now only 0.10 Pi / hour. Not yet available on the exchange platforms either, the project should go into its final phase also at the end of the year. Some estimates see the PI around 20$ by then, but as always it is only speculation, nothing is sure until the Pi is tradable on the exchanges.

Eagle Networks: very promising

Eagle Network uses the same principle again and again.

You can read his white paper here.

The project is more recent, and has “only” 500,000 users for the moment. But in return, the output is much better, since it is 0.50 Eagle / hour, or 12 Eagle per day.

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This return can be increased by creating your own team of miners, but also by participating every day in the wheel of fortune 🙂

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The application, translated into French, is rather clear and pleasant to use.

As for the others, access is only possible with a sponsor code. You can use my code “cedriclocqueneu” (without the “x” at the end this time), which will also give you a 10 Eagle bonus to start.

Time Stope: time is money

Time Stope works on a slightly different principle, since the goal here is to value your time. This is done through a calendar, on which you have to put a stamp each day, to “prove” your participation. Each stamp gives you two points. You start the adventure with a balance of 100 points. However, if you forget to stamp a day, you will lose 3 points. If you fall to 0, your account is closed. This requires a certain discipline to come back each day. For each day you stamp, TimeStope’s mining continues, and is displayed at the top of the screen:

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And the others…

These projects are not the only ones that allow you to mine cryptocurrencies on your smartphone. There is Electroneum. But this currency works on the same principle of mining as Bitcoin, by exploiting the power of the device. So you need a powerful smartphone, and that you leave running 24/24 to perform this task.

There were also MinerGate Mobile Miner and Bitcoin Miner, which allowed you to mine many cryptocurrencies. But this is not an advisable activity, as this type of smartphone mining leads to overheating of the phone, damage to the battery and lower overall performance. With smartphones costing more than 1000€, it will be very difficult to amortize the operation. Applications that do background mining and exploit the computing power of smartphones have been removed from both Android and Apple app stores.

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Others offer to mine Bitcoin using their own servers, like StormGain for example: well, you can’t expect to get rich with this type of method, since it will bring you roughly 15 dollars in a month, with the obligation to restart the mining every 4 hours. And these 15 dollars can’t be cashed out, but only used to trade on the StormGain platform. There only if you make a profit you can withdraw your earnings…

Is it profitable to mine cryptocurrencies on your smartphone?

Many questions may indeed arise about mining cryptocurrencies on his smartphone. Free application and mining… As we often say, if it’s free, you are the product. Today, all companies are hunting for data, in order to retrieve data about you. The applications mentioned here retrieve rather little data: a name, associated with an email or a phone number. You need a minimum to identify yourself to the service. By the way, give your real name, and not a pseudo: at some point in the project, you will be asked for an ID with a selfie to really grant you your cryptocurrencies (this is what they call the KYD). This is to verify that you are who you say you are, and especially that there are no duplicate accounts or bots. So if you were thinking of creating accounts on several smartphones with different phone numbers or email addresses, forget it: duplicate accounts will be identified and deleted during the identity verification. This verification has not yet happened for me on any of the projects, but it should happen soon depending on their progress.

Some applications propose to connect with a Google or Facebook account: also avoid, because of course it’s the best way to give private information. Personally I opted for a phone number or an email, not more.

Regarding the profitability of the operation, unless you are clairvoyant, it is impossible to say what will happen to these currencies. Just as bitcoin miners could have imagined the meteoric rise in the years that followed. No wonder that some people rushed to their dump to try to recover their old PC on which bitcoins were lying around, seemingly worthless…

Will these cryptocurrencies mined on a simple smartphone be listed one day? The organizers of these projects, like the millions of miners, hope so. If you have read their white papers, you will have seen that some of the projects are interesting and have great ambitions (I strongly encourage you to read them to make your own opinion). Maybe this is the advent of crypto 2.0 after all? As the old currency model is no longer tenable given the hardware configurations and the energy needed to produce them, these new schemes may be the future. We don’t know. All we know is that here no hardware configuration is necessary, nor any consumption of energy, nor data, etc. No investment, and no cost. So there is nothing to lose, but everything to gain, if one day these cryptocurrencies would be successful. You’ll just have to be patient, because everything will be played out over the long term (Bitcoin took 10 years to get where it is today). In the meantime, it only costs a small click per day. Personally I’m on the 4 applications mentioned above: Bee, Pi, Eagle, and Time Stope. Installed together at a few minutes interval, I simply created an alarm on my smartphone that reminds me every day to reactivate the mining in these applications. 2 min each day, it is not more difficult than that. Let’s meet in 10 years to talk about it again?

Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments what you think, if you know of other interesting projects, etc.!

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