In keeping with the cryptocurrency theme, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer HTC has partnered with Midas Labs to enable Monero (XMR) mining on its mobile phones. The new feature will see its blockchain-friendly smartphone, , integrating Midas’ DeMiner app to start mining the privacy-focused cryptocurrency within the next two months.
Practically, the crypto-mining app allows everyone in the world that has HTC Exodus in their pocket to leverage its CPU and memory in mining Monero. The annual mining rewards pool generated by the now 5-year-old cryptocurrency total more than $60 million.
As you probably already guessed, such rewards appear to be increasingly falling into the hands of ASIC operators. More importantly, mobile phones mayn’t be well-suited to solve mining puzzles that require significant computational resources.
In comparison to standard CPUs and GPUs hosed in PCs, much less mining rigs, mobiles don’t have the comparable computational power neither can they sustain operating for long periods due to limited capacity of their battery.
Reflecting on the idea of nudging out mobile hobbyist participants, Phil Chen, Decentralized Chief Officer at HTC, said: “Mining on mobile is an important research topic in understanding the development of secure crypto networks. The number of mobile phones in 2020 is approaching 3.5 Billion, which would further decentralize and distribute the hash rate and mining power of such crypto networks.”
While there is nothing interesting about a phone with mid-range specs, HTC said Exodus users will benefit from activation of a new mining algorithm known as RandomX, designed to render ASICs non-competitive.
For monero’s traditinal mining algorithm, called CryptoNight, GPU miners were taking the lead over CPUs that were less efficient in terms of computation and energy consumption. RandomX will preserve an advantageous lead favoring CPU miners over application-specific integrated circuits.
“Furthermore, the mature development of power-saving software on mobile, as opposed to power-hungry laptops or desktops, amplifies the effectiveness and efficiency of the profitability of mining on mobile,” he added.
HTC has recently launched a crypto-focused router that leverages Zion software to deliver a bitcoin node and a secure vault to store cryptocurrency.
Dubbed ‘HTC 5G Hub,’ the portable router, allows users to transact cryptocurrencies without needing to rely on third-party exchanges or wallet providers, meaning they can store the entire blockchain’s data on their device.
Exodus 5G router supplements HTC’s cryptocurrency-oriented smartphones, 1 and the Exodus 1s that can also function as a full Bitcoin node.
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