Mining Crypto in the Browser: GPU, WebAssembly and Other Things to Try
summary
Empirical evaluation of in-browser cryptocurrency mining: JavaScript single-threaded hashing (~66k H/s), WebWorkers (~200k H/s), slightly faster WebAssembly, and GPU pixel-shader techniques giving >200× speedups (~9.6M H/s). Results show Bitcoin is infeasible due to ASICs, while Monero (XMR) can be mined with Coinhive-style miners; a measured desktop configuration yields roughly €2.5/month per user at 90% CPU (≈€1.5 at 5–10%), with mobile use limited by battery and ethical concerns.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:58What is crypto mining
- 5:30Bitcoin mining basics
- 8:03First browser attempts
- 10:12Web Workers for mining
- 13:34WebGL GPU mining
- 16:45WebGL mining results
- 18:00CPU to ASIC evolution
- 19:50Monero mining in browser
- 20:54Monero mining use case
- 22:02Browser mining solutions
- 23:55Benefits and ethics
- 25:20Ethics and UX
- 26:48Conclusions
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