Тhe profitability of cryptocurrency mining is decreasing on the backdrop of this year’s persistently bearish markets but Coinhive seems to be doing pretty well. The browser-based miner has earned a quarter million dollars worth of monero in just one month, according to a new study conducted by German researchers.
Also read: New Player to Offer Next Generation ASIC Chips This Year
One in Three Minted Coins Goes to Coinhive Developers
Coinhive, the Javascript-based miner that takes away some of your CPU power to mine cryptos while you are browsing the web, remains very active. That’s one of the key findings in a report produced by academics from the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, or the RWTH Aachen University in Germany. The software mints monero, a leading privacy coin whose struggle to remain ASIC-resistant has resulted in several forks this year.
According to the study, the miner has generated 1,271 XMR, or approximately $250,000 worth of monero, during the observation period of four weeks this spring. At the current, lower prices of around $88 USD per coin, the amount is still substantial – over $110,000 USD.
Coinhive is also estimated to mine 1.18 percent of all monero blocks with a median hash rate of 5.5M h/s. Its developers receive 30 percent of every minted coin and the authors of the research claim that most of the commission is sent to a small group of people.
Released in 2017, Coinhive was created to facilitate websites offering visitors ad-free experience in return for using their hardware to mine cryptocurrencies like monero. The absence of advertisements, however, comes with slower browsing speeds as the miner works in the background. Other factors, such as shortened battery life of
