4 ms·

Javascript is way too slow compared to GPU, by at least a factor of 1000 or more. If you have 1M daily unique visitor and you manage to "steal" 10 CPU seconds f

Javascript is way too slow compared to GPU, by at least a factor of 1000 or more. If you have 1M daily unique visitor and you manage to "steal" 10 CPU seconds from each of them, the amount of work would be equivalent to 1e6 * 10 / 1000 = 10000 seconds which is about 2.8 hours of one dedicated GPU-based mining machine.

trickjarrett 15y ago
Agreed, it is far from the future of super computing. But it provides an interesting first iteration for a potential future model of income off of websites.
milkshakes 15y ago
for now. webcl support is not far off, and that's when this could get quite interesting
- scrod 15y ago
  WebCL makes about as much sense as AwkOS.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - regularfry 15y ago
    Slightly relevant: http://awk.info/?awk4ai http://awk.info/?awk4ai
- doublec 15y ago
  it's here now if you don't mind using a plugin: http://webcl.nokiaresearch.com/ http://webcl.nokiaresearch.com/
rudiger 15y ago
Actually, regular CPU miners are nearly 1,000 times slower than GPU miners. I wouldn't be surprised if a JavaScript miner was several orders of magnitude slower than that (ie. a million times slower than GPU miners). What about using gamers' excess GPU to mine Bitcoins in an installable massively-multiplayer game? Is anyone trying this?
- vabole 15y ago
  I wonder when will the bitcoin mining viruses appear. If done stealthily they could use spare resources and fall back when other GPU/CPU intensive task is launched. Such virus could be quite profitable if it spread widely enough.
  - Groxx 15y ago
    And easily detectable by owning a laptop (that burning sensation isn't a UTI) or having fans in your computer (harder to tell if you live near an airport).
  - rmc 15y ago
    Since bitcoin mining is rapidly getting uneconomical on non-specialised hardware, if you control a botnet you probably get more money from the usual botnet activies like spamming or ddosing.
- rmc 15y ago
  If you control a massively multiplayer game you probably get more money from the player subscriptions.
  - regularfry 15y ago
    If you could turn out a bitcoin per day per player, that's massively more than the subscriptions at today's rates. Of course, there's no guarantee that you could do this, and there's no guarantee that today's exchange rates have anything more than blind optimism keeping them afloat, but the idea's not inherently stupid. In fact, it might be an interesting way for EVE (for instance) to link ISK to real-world value. There's a lot that a MMORPG company could do with a system which encourages people to stay in-game more than they already do...
    - rmc 15y ago
      "If you could turn out a bitcoin per day per player" Can't be done. According to this BitCoin calculator[1] you need to generate 245 Mhashes/sec (mega-hashes per second) to generate 1 bitcoin per day today. (Remeber that number will go up as time goes on) I assume that calculator is for 24/7 calculation (which you won't get with gamers), let's assume they are hardcore and play 6 hours per day, every day. You can't dedicate 100% of your customer's GPU power to bitcoin mining (since they'll need to actually play yoru game), let's say you dedicate 20% of their GPU. To get 1 bitcoin per day you need hardware that's able to do 245 × 4 × 5 = 4,900 Mhashes/sec. This thread[2] from the bitcoin forum today has some idea of what current hardware can do. They say "5870's are $250 apiece at the moment and each only get around 350 Mh/s", so in order to get 4,900 Mh/s, you'll need about 14 of them. i.e. If the players of your MMO have 14 graphics cards (costing ~US$250 each) in their machine, then you can probably generate 1 bitcoin per day per hardcore player. i.e. It's not possible, forget about it. [1] http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php [2] http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9052.0 http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9052.0

trickjarrett 15y ago

Agreed, it is far from the future of super computing. But it provides an interesting first iteration for a potential future model of income off of websites.

milkshakes 15y ago

for now. webcl support is not far off, and that's when this could get quite interesting

scrod 15y ago
WebCL makes about as much sense as AwkOS.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- regularfry 15y ago
  Slightly relevant: http://awk.info/?awk4ai http://awk.info/?awk4ai
doublec 15y ago
it's here now if you don't mind using a plugin: http://webcl.nokiaresearch.com/ http://webcl.nokiaresearch.com/

rudiger 15y ago

Actually, regular CPU miners are nearly 1,000 times slower than GPU miners. I wouldn't be surprised if a JavaScript miner was several orders of magnitude slower than that (ie. a million times slower than GPU miners). What about using gamers' excess GPU to mine Bitcoins in an installable massively-multiplayer game? Is anyone trying this?

vabole 15y ago
I wonder when will the bitcoin mining viruses appear. If done stealthily they could use spare resources and fall back when other GPU/CPU intensive task is launched. Such virus could be quite profitable if it spread widely enough.
- Groxx 15y ago
  And easily detectable by owning a laptop (that burning sensation isn't a UTI) or having fans in your computer (harder to tell if you live near an airport).
- rmc 15y ago
  Since bitcoin mining is rapidly getting uneconomical on non-specialised hardware, if you control a botnet you probably get more money from the usual botnet activies like spamming or ddosing.
rmc 15y ago
If you control a massively multiplayer game you probably get more money from the player subscriptions.
- regularfry 15y ago
  If you could turn out a bitcoin per day per player, that's massively more than the subscriptions at today's rates. Of course, there's no guarantee that you could do this, and there's no guarantee that today's exchange rates have anything more than blind optimism keeping them afloat, but the idea's not inherently stupid. In fact, it might be an interesting way for EVE (for instance) to link ISK to real-world value. There's a lot that a MMORPG company could do with a system which encourages people to stay in-game more than they already do...
  - rmc 15y ago
    "If you could turn out a bitcoin per day per player" Can't be done. According to this BitCoin calculator[1] you need to generate 245 Mhashes/sec (mega-hashes per second) to generate 1 bitcoin per day today. (Remeber that number will go up as time goes on) I assume that calculator is for 24/7 calculation (which you won't get with gamers), let's assume they are hardcore and play 6 hours per day, every day. You can't dedicate 100% of your customer's GPU power to bitcoin mining (since they'll need to actually play yoru game), let's say you dedicate 20% of their GPU. To get 1 bitcoin per day you need hardware that's able to do 245 × 4 × 5 = 4,900 Mhashes/sec. This thread[2] from the bitcoin forum today has some idea of what current hardware can do. They say "5870's are $250 apiece at the moment and each only get around 350 Mh/s", so in order to get 4,900 Mh/s, you'll need about 14 of them. i.e. If the players of your MMO have 14 graphics cards (costing ~US$250 each) in their machine, then you can probably generate 1 bitcoin per day per hardcore player. i.e. It's not possible, forget about it. [1] http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php [2] http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9052.0 http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9052.0