

Browser Bitcoin Miner - dnadolny
http://www.bitcoinplus.com/generate

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dnadolny
I've just finished a browser-based bitcoin miner, written in Java (as an
applet).

I'd love to get some feedback on it.

Once the page loads, hit "Start generating" and it should start mining
bitcoin.

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wmf
This should be called GlobalWarming@Home because it's so inefficient; it's
literally 200x slower than a GPU. The generated BTC are probably worth less
than the electricity consumed.

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baggachipz
Unless your office is paying for the electricity ;)

 _\--edit-- Really? I'm getting downvoted for a valid point?_

~~~
dnadolny
True.

I've been thinking this over for a while. Right now, the general consensus is
that the price of bitcoin will end up being related to the cost of electricity
for computing, and in the long run transaction fees will have to go up or down
to make that happen.

I think this will change.

When you have negative externalities like this, where people don't pay for
electricity (they're renting, or in a condo/apartment building that has
electricity included) or even free CPU power, as in an office, then the
economics change. The price of bitcoin won't be tied to the price of
electricity/CPU power, it will be tied to the cost of running a website like
mine that lets people take advantage of free CPU power.

~~~
wmf
Yes, I think there will be a "base" of miners who basically have zero marginal
cost, then a certain number of "suckers" who think that they'll make money
even though they won't, and then "serious" miners whose number will vary
according to profitability. Ultimately the base + suckers is probably enough
to keep Bitcoin working in some form.

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dkersten
If I log into my account from multiple computers, I take it that it just does
the right thing and accumulate work from all running miners?

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3pt14159
I also wonder this. Also, say I have a highly trafficked site with a worthless
customer base (say a puppy pictures site for 6 year olds) is there a way I can
embed your applet into my site and have it generate me bitcoins invisibly to
the six year old? I'd much rather do this than spam them with useless adwords.

Edit: I'm aware that this will only generate about half a cent per hour, but
you would be surprised how long kids can browse useless pictures.

~~~
dnadolny
That came up on the bitcoin forums
(<http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8780.0>). I've got plans for doing
something like that - let you embed the miner in your website so your visitors
mine bitcoin for you. It's a really cool idea because you get money based on
how long people stay on your page, rather than how many pageviews or click-
throughs you have. Instead it's based on a more accurate measure of user
interest - time spent on the page.

If anyone's interested in that, leave a reply here, or email me at
donny@bitcoinplus.com and I'll let you know when it's ready.

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jokermatt999
Just my opinion, but this feels really scummy. I'd wonder why your site caused
my CPU to spike, and probably consciously avoid it from then on.

~~~
dnadolny
I get where you're coming from. Here's an interesting thought: consider this
as an alternative to advertising.

Which would you rather: a website use your mind by taking your attention to an
advertisement, or a website using your CPU?

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jokermatt999
Advertising, no contest. Annoying, intrusive ads I have no qualms about
adblocking, because they will never actually get me to buy a product. Helpful,
non-invasive ads and clearly disclosed affiliate links? Feel free, since I'm
getting some benefit too. There is no way for me to benefit from you using my
cpu (ignoring the actual content in this comparison, obviously).

~~~
dnadolny
I'm sure any embeddable bitcoin miner will be added to adblock pretty quickly,
so you won't have to worry.

Would it change your mind if you were given a portion of the bitcoins
generated while you were on a site that was doing this?

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jokermatt999
For some people, yes. For me personally, no. I find them interesting, but I'm
not investing in them really.

I think the best way to do it would be to ask, and be very clear about what
you're doing. Some people would gladly help you, but others may be more wary.

~~~
dkersten
Heres how I would do it: have a Bitcoin Plus (or whatever) widget box clearly
visible on the website. Have it tell the user exactly what it is doing,
including the current speed. Highlight the fact that it is an alternative to
advertisement and that it only uses idle processing time (or if its used
together with advertisement, state that its used to help pay for the site).
Finally, provide a stop/pause button so that if it really annoys somebody or
actually is causing cpu spikes, its easy to turn off.

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ZachPruckowski
As I understand it, the real Bitcoin mining money is in GPUs, right? Does this
work with GPUs (I'm guessing not)?

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dnadolny
Yep, GPUs are much faster than CPUs for mining. A top of the line GPU does 600
MHash/sec, on my graphics card it was doing I think 3 or 4 MHash/sec but the
computer was unusably slow, and with a CPU miner I get 2 MHash/sec and my
computer is perfectly usable. This is targeting the people who are interested
in bitcoin (you can still mine a usable amount), but don't want to set up a
dedicated mining machine.

Right now it doesn't use the GPU but I've got plans to do it too (it might be
able to work with the new OpenCL stuff that's going on)

~~~
dkersten
My GPU stably does 30 Mhash/s (when I underclock it a little bit), or 55
Mhash/s on stock speeds (about 65 is the max I can get overclocking) but then
the GPU temperature increases quite quickly and if left for too long I've seen
it do one of two things: automatically underclock to 30 Mhash/s or just crash.

Not sure how to best do it in a (non-obtrusive) applet, but would certainly be
interesting to get it working!

