Ethereum co-creator criticizes Monero mining with phones

Ethereum co-creator, Vitalik Buterin, criticized the cooperation between HTC and Midas Labs that allows Monero mining with cell phones.
To mine 1 full XMR would take about 40 years with the HTC mining application.

There has been a discussion about the cooperation between the computer manufacturing company HTC and Midas Labs that allows users of the HTC EXODUS phone to mine Monero. The co-creator of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, criticized the initiative through his Twitter account.

The cooperation between HTC and Midas Labs was announced on April 10th and allows mining Monero with the DeMiner application. Developed by Midas Labs, the application allows mining directly from the phone due to its low power consumption levels. Jri Lee, founder of Midas Labs said about the application:

Midas Labs empowers EXODUS 1S users to mine at least $0.0038 of XMR per day on average, while the electricity cost is less than 50% of that. Midas Labs will deepen the process of decentralization by providing hardware-related solutions for the mobile industry. Midas is excited to collaborate with Exodus to enable an even greater user-friendly environment for blockchain enthusiasts.

Buterin: Don’t mine, stake

Critics of the above-mentioned cooperation have claimed that it would take almost 40 years to mine 1 Monero (XMR) with the application. They point out that the mining profitability with DeMiner is low and inefficient. In that regard, critics’ estimations have concluded that it would take several centuries to replace the initial investment that was made in the telephone equipment alone. The co-creator of Ethereum said the following:

Mining on phones is a fool’s game. Goes against everything we know about hardware economies of scale and more likely to trick users with false hope than help them.

On the contrary, Buterin proposed that users should stake.The co-creator of Ethereum said staking with cell phones is promising in contrast to mining. This statement was also debated. Ethereum is in the process of making a transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, therefore, some users are questioning Buterin’s objectivity.

User VladCostea was one of the critics of Buterin and PoS. The user asked Buterin about the advantages of PoS over PoW also used by Bitcoin, pointing out that PoS is a method that only “enriches the rich”. Buterin responded:

As though PoW is some virtuous act of working with blood and sweat and not largely just sitting around waiting for hardware (that you bought because you’re rich) to make you even richer.

Last Updated on 14 April, 2020