So, I have been watching this project for a long time and wanted to touch on some key points that have come to light for me around the mobile mining.
I have been using the mobile mining app now for the better part of a week, and here is what I have learned.
Electroneum mining on your phone is not actually mining.
This is probably the most interesting part of the whole project to me.
Cryptocurrency mining, as many of you already know is a process of verifying transactions on the blockchain in exchange for rewards of whatever coin you are mining.
This is not what is happening when you "mine" Electroneum on your phone.
The truth of the whole matter is that they just make it look like mining, and make your phone reward you in the same manner as if you were mining, but mining on your phone is not in any way contributing to the conformation of transactions.
Understanding the hashrate!
A "hashrate" is the speed at which a particular device can compute the algorithm that is used to mine cryptocurrency. Computer CPUs are normally very inefficient at computing these algorithms... If you tried to mine bitcoin from your computer's CPU, you would have a very very very small chance of winning a block (solving the problem before the other computers do).
Apparently though Electroneum has made their algorithm much more efficient to me mined through small CPUs. They wanted their cryptocurrency to be easy enough to mine that someone could successfully mine it through the small CPU on their cell phone.
In general, the faster your hardware can compute the algorithms, the higher your hashrate, and the higher your hashrate the better chance you have of being rewarded with the crypto.
Problems with using mobile phones to actually process transactions and mine crypto.
Even with the more simple and efficient algorithms, there are some problems with actually mining Electroneum algorithm's on your phone.
It would use up battery power really really fast. Processing all of that data would suck the battery dry in no time, virtually making your phone useless as a mobile device.
It would bog down the processing power of your phone rendering it virtually useless for anything other than mining (like making calls and whatnot).
It would probably overheat the processor, causing damage to the hardware. These processors were not actually designed to take that much abuse. They do not have the proper cooling mechanisms and overheating failsafes in place.
Why does the Electroneum mobile mining app show a hashrate if it is not actually mining?
As a solution to all of these problems, Electroneum has decided to just treat your phone as if it were mining.
When you load the Mining app software (the Electroneum wallet) onto your phone and hit start mining, the app will benchmark the processing power of your phone and allocate a hashrate that the phone would have if actually mining.
As you have the app running in the background (not really using any extra battery power by the way) you will get rewarded the appropriate amount of electronium as if you were actually contributing to the stability of the network.
Why would Electroneum reward people for fake mining? Why are mobile miners being rewarded when they are not actually providing stability to the system?
This is the million dollar question, and to me what makes the whole thing so interesting.
Electroneum has basically designed their whole platform to continually "airdrop" coins to people just for participating in the use of the coins, well really for just having a wallet installed on their phone.
The reason that I believe that they are doing this is to make the barrier of entry into Electroneum very small. With no overhead costs, (everyone has a phone in their pocket, and the app is free) people can get their feet wet in the crypto world. I know a lot of people who are very skeptical about buying crypto, but would probably be more than willing to get some for free just by installing an app.
I think that this airdrop model may end up being very good for Electroneum, and may prove to be good for crypto in general.
It is kind of like giving someone a free toolbox... eventually they are going to want to fill it with tools.
My mining rewards so far.
I have a LG V20 cell phone, which is a little old as far as cell phones go, but was a top of the line phone when I bought it and still works really well.
I have been mining a average of about 4 Electroneum a day with that phone.
So far I have about 26 mined.
They are not worth a lot now, but I am going to just continue to mine them for as long as they let me... I don't see why I wouldn't it literally costs me nothing!
I will tell you though, I have been very tempted to just go on the exchange and buy some, now that I am mining them and have some in my wallet.
With the fact that they are giving them away, and making Electroneum the very easiest crypto for a person who knows nothing to get into, I think Electroneum has a good chance of being one of the top used cryptocurrencies in the near future.
I haven't bought any yet but I am considering it, especially since Electroneum is now available on the KuCoin exchange.
Hope this article was helpful.
Please upvote and resteem this content, I wrote the entire thing. And don't forget to follow for more articles in the future!
Below are screenshots taken off of my phone at the time I posted this article.
And as a very last note... If you do install the app...
My referral code is 2BFE72
If you use it, we will both have a chance to win some free Electroneum. Just enter it into the part that says "earn free coins"
