Thoughts after mining Monero for three days

@UsualCat 500-700H/s moneroocean

@fantuan too hard for moneroocean
they had 178.37 MH/s as now i write this reply
while you had 500-700H/s so its around 0,000392%

while on other pool like
rplant 132.25 KH/s you get around 0,529%
so more worth it if you joined small pool if you had small hashrate since your effords will feels "bigger" inside the pool. otherwise you start solo mining itself (but had almost rare chance to get the block). in short bigger pool > higher block found chance > but smaller "portion" of the block. while smaller pool, you get more reward for block found, but less block found on that pool.

imagine me 7KH/s getting 10$ back then is still consider hard til the point i not continue the mining. so if you think its not profitable maybe just buy monero instead, you get the return bigger than what you mine for sure.

@UsualCat
I will be plainly honest with you. I got this impression mainly from deepseek's answers to my questions about mining over the years. I've not done any formal investigation, but I'm pretty confident in my impression.

I'll try to explain myself a bit better.

The sha256 hash algorithm is the best algorithm for running specialised hardware (asics) because of the advantage it gives over generic hardware. Conversely, the RandomX algorithm is the best algorithm for running on generic hardware because you don't have to compete against asics.

Bitcoin and Monero control the respective algorithms. This is why bitcoin has more money (more power) and monero is harder to regulate (more freedom).

So why is Bitcoin mining so unprofitable, that miners can berely afford electricity and their fancy asics? Why is Monero mining so unprofitable that hobiests view it as charity. This is because miners compete with each other for discounted electrictiy.

Rather than pushing prices up, crypto mining creates an arms race for cheap electricity. This changes the game in electricity markets because it creates a demand for otherwise unusable energy. Its not just an increase in demand, but a change of the shape of demand.

In Bitcoin, this has meant that miners sign contracts with new electricity generation ventures that entitles them to discounted energy under the condition of flexible allowances. In practise, the generators are selling their spare electricity and using it to pay the bills of an otherwise unviable business.

Similarly, RandomX makes botnets profitable by providing demand for stolen electricity running on generic compute. Since Monero dominates RandomX mining, its the coin that these botnets operators are mining. This is why its not profitable to mine at home because you are competing against these operators with huge swarms of zombies and no electricity bills. Sometimes they are subtle and go unnoticed for god knows how long.

I don't pretend that my understanding of this is completely thorough, but I'd also doubt that any list or statistic could be accurate, given the nature of the technology and crime.

Here is the latest related news report I could find after a brief search:
https://www.scworld.com/news/prometei-botnet-monero

Also I got a lot of these ideas from 'The Bitcoin Miner's Almanac' which is a short book on Bitcoin asic mining.
https://annas-archive.gl/md5/55aca5672781722755d166b49f68d3cf?&check=1

@Nebuchadnezzar_II back then if you aware, ppl can just mine with browser, (i already put the reference somewhere i think, i forget now)

its literally just like ads. then people just embed it on his website
everytime open, it counted as mining on browser. using all hardware acceleration etc.
thats how earlier monero mining via web works
now seems not anymore

thats why i somehow want to know what ppl botnet mining from at current day lol
if you asked me for monero. i sure ppl who mining with lot of hardware, they maybe just mining with their office things
like on cluster computer or else... instead using viruses.... (anti virus seems good now. even monero wallet get flagged last time lol)

@UsualCat
Wow thats neat, I never thought of mining from the browser like that.
I doubt there are many sizable miners running their own hardware, unless they somehow get really cheap power.
I think some of these botnets are huge and pretty sophisticated.

@Nebuchadnezzar_II yeah not actually. first time i hear ppl can mine on browser with javascript injection was wild... i think its maybe complicated too, but no. its as simple as calling css or javascript on website. and done. as long as user open it idle, or whatever the cpu will be taken for mining.

somehow its almost goes beyond discussion about legal or not, ethical or not, good or bad.... since if its their own sites, ofc they can do whatever, or can even write on TOS that they put miner on sites lol

@UsualCat
Good idea, you're not forcing anyone to run the code just putting it on your website.
Somehow I can't imagine it being permitted. I imagine its blocked by browsers already?

I've considered building a website for flash games, like the old newgrounds, that would mine XMR in the background while serving "free" games.

@bulletbill22 better than fucking adverts anyway!

@Nebuchadnezzar_II i mean it works just like PoW captcha
have you ever hear about it? if yes welp its most likely the browser doesn't even know until someone report it to the browser itself
i myself making POW captcha, so its completely legal and using same approach. some website using hardware acceleration for like...

• compressing something
• building something
• exporting something
  and in browser as clientside processing. its completely legal.
  so i doubt something like "mining in browser" was prevented, since its can use any of loophole. the closer things that i can think was playing AV1/H265 media or solving PoW captcha which is using alot of usage gpu and cpu. and its completely legal and normal