One area of crypto overlooked by a lot of cryptocurrency enthusiasts is the small niche of ‘mobile mining’. There’s very little profit in this area which is no surprise why it’s overlooked by pros, however, it may be a useful tool in understanding trends in crypto, particularly relating to the adoption of crypto by younger generations and third world populations who have less capital to invest but do require the simple tech and time needed to ‘mobile mine’.
Yes, I am using inverted commas around ‘mobile mining’ to stress that I’m not talking about actual mobile mining, where one uses their phone hardware like one would a GPU or ASIC to mine coins. Minergate did have an app available on the Android store not so long ago to do just that but I believe it has now faded into obscurity as it was incredulously inefficient, to say the very least.
anyway…
No, I’m talking about an increasingly popular range of apps that market themselves as ‘mobile miners’, but in reality mine nothing with with your hardware and simply pay out a small amount of coin a day to reward users for engaging with their app.
The engagement required to earn coins is broken down by app below but in a nutshell can range from:
- Logging in to the app once a week
- Logging in to the app once a week and being required to watch an advert
- Logging in to the app once a day
All of these apps of course offer the oh-so-familar ‘refer a friend and earn more coins’ marketing technique, which I would slag off with more venom, but naturally my referral links will be dotted throughout this article, so I better restrain myself.
The point of this article is not to dissect and understands the apps themselves, although I briefly sum them up to understand them, their user base and adoption rate.
The point here is that millennials, young people in general and third world populations are the demographics needed to catapult crypto further into the mainstream. However cheap and gimmicky we label these ‘mobile mining’ apps they are doing something even Coinbase is failing at, offering something for free, with no lengthy KYC, no real effort, just a steady (small) stream of income.
Nonsense you might say, what kids are really bothered about making 10 cents a week? Well, newsflash, I’m not just talking about middle-class kids with the newest iPhone and EarPods to match, I’m talking about any child in the world with even the most basic Android phone.
Children like this, could be what takes cryptocurrency from exciting to worldwide currency.
As it happens, one of the leading apps, Electroneum is making waves in Africa. They even distribute more of their coin per month to those in Africa as well as selected other third world countries than they do to the middle-class kids with EarPods mentioned above. On top of this they’ve released there own Android phone with a build in ‘miner’ for just $80 which I believe is only available in certain areas of Africa and South America.
Meet the M1 Android phone.
This is what mass crypto adoption needs, accessible currencies and technologies that can be used easily in third world countries. And luckily for us there is a simple way we can monitor the adoption and from that be able to predict when the crypto-sphere will go hyper-parabolic. Allow me to explain.
Note this screenshot above I took in October 2018 and pay attention to the number of ‘Active Miners’.
Now this screenshot above I took in February 2019, note that around 30'000 miners have disappeared.
Yes, you guessed it, this last screenshot of the app this month, February 2020 and note how many miners are now in play. (Also, what a lovely makeover they’ve given the app, it’s less ‘crypto-creepy-hacker’ looking and now more ‘look how minimal and playful we are’.
Anyway, you’re probably wondering what an earth I’m getting at…
The keen crypto-heads among you may have already glanced at the dates and realised what I’m getting at here. I’ll break it down for you more simply…
Oct 2018. ETN Miners: 137'983 Bitcoin = $6'500
Feb 2019. ETN Miners: 106'775 Bitcoin = $3'500
Feb 2020. ETN Miners: 225'930 Bitcoin = £9'500
What we see built in to the Electroneum app is a tremendously understated indicator of Bitcoin (and therefore Crypto sentient) and one I plan to keep my eye on closely in the coming years as I believe it can not only predict adoption but adoption in countries with less income, less technology and most astoundingly, huge populations.
Whilst Electroneum is certainly the market leader in this area for now with an impressive head start, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for behemoths like Coinbase, Google, or Facebook (in the form the dreaded Libra coin) to adopt this model, or in true Coinbase / Google / Facebook style, simply buy out Electroneum.
For the time being, I have had a look around at Electroneum’s competitors or AHEM, should i say copiers to see what’s what, here we go…
Electroneum
The app to beat (or copy).
I’ve personally withdrawn over 2000 ETN to KuCoin without any issues. It’s well established, easy to use and doesn’t force you to watch any adverts or bully you into referring your friends to the app (you can of course refer your friends to the app, the point is they’re not being dicks about it and making it seem like the be all and end all of your entire existence.)
Active Miners: 220'000+
Android Downloads: 1M+
Android Reviews: 46'606
iPhone Downloads: 20'000+ (Estimated)
iPhone Reviews: 282
Currency: ETN
Price: (February 2020) $0.004112 USD / 0.00000042 BTC
Listed on Exchanges: KuCoin, Huobi Global, HitBTC, Liquid & more.
How to earn: Sign up, prove you’re human, log in a minimum of once every 7 days to keep ‘mining’.
How often does it payout? Withdrawal enabled when you’ve mined 100 ETN which takes on average 1 month.
Links:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.electroneum.mobile&hl=en_GB
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/electroneum/id1270774992
Enter code 447DB7 for extra ETN or scan this QR code.
Phoneum
An almost carbon clone of Electroneum made rather crudely in Unity (a video game engine, which is odd).
On the plus side, like Electroneum, you only have to log in once every 7 days. Unlike Electroneum however you usually have to watch a short advert to enable mining again and the value of PHT is (currently) very, very low. To add insult to injury you cannot withdraw your almost worthless PHT until you’ve mined a whopping 30'000.
Active Miners: ?
Android Downloads: 100'000+
Android Reviews: 3'768
iPhone Downloads: 5'000+ (Estimated)
iPhone Reviews: 35
Currency: PHT
Price: (February 2020) $0.00013984 / 0.00000001 BTC
Listed on Exchanges: LATOKEN, Probit
How to earn: Sign up, watch 1 advert, log in a minimum of once every 7 days to keep ‘mining’.
How often does it payout? Withdrawal enabled when you’ve mined 30'000 PHT which takes on average of 43 weeks at the current rate.
Links:
https://cloudearning.page.link/kYfu7Soc9sxEd36d8
Pi Network
Pi is a strange one, it appears to have an enormous and very excited community, you are not forced to watch ads, yet the app overall feels amateur and clunky. The most irritating part is logging in every 24 hours to keep receiving a ‘coin’ that as of yet, has no value, usage or clear future.
Active Miners: ?
Android Downloads: 1M+
Android Reviews: 13'012
iPhone Downloads: 10'000+ (Estimated)
iPhone Reviews: 711
Currency: π
Price: No price information yet.
Listed on Exchanges: Not yet.
How to earn: Sign up, start ‘mining’, check in every 24 hours (if you can be bothered) to keep mining.
How often does it payout? There is currently no withdrawal option but they of course say this is ‘coming soon’ in their FAQ at an undisclosed date.
Links:
https://minepi.com/Morissey and use my username (Morissey) to earn extra Pi.
BONUS MENTIONS
Not necessarily bonafide apps per se and certainly not ‘cloud mining’ but both the below have been making a lot of splashes in the pond recently and they are just as important to adoption in third world countries and hence, relevant to this discussion (as bonus mentions at the very least).
Presearch
Presearch is a very cool concept, and I for one, do not even know how it works for them, how they can reward you for essentially googling something (albeit through their browser plugin).
I heard about Presearch a while ago and wasn’t surprised when Microsoft announced they will be doing something similar with their new Edge browser. In an effort no doubt to not only compete with Presearch, but also with the awesome Brave browser which we will cover in more detail below.
I have personally generated around 160 PRE so far but haven’t got to the withdrawal stage of 1000 yet as, to be honest, when you use the Presearch search engine, it is very slow. A lot of the time i’m in a hurry and I don’t have the extra seconds to wait for an answer so I revert back to trusty old, speedy Google.
Still, the coin value is good, and I’ve worked out that even at my current rate of searching using the plugin I should have a tasty amount to withdraw in a few months.
Currency: PRE
Price: $0.030376 USD / 0.00000309 BTC
Listed on Exchanges: HitBTC, Probit, and I expect a lot more exchanges will list PRE very soon.
How to earn: Install the plugin to Brave, Chrome or your web browser of choice and use the address bar to search the web as you normally would.
How often does it payout? When you reach 1'000 PRE and haven’t abused the system by simulating searches, for example. (If you read through reddit and forums you’ll find a lot of people who have had their account blocked. I assume they have been using macros to spam the search box.)
Links:
https://www.presearch.org/signup?rid=1550906
Brave Browser
First of all, I’m sorry, I doubt many reading this will not have heard of Brave. I just couldn’t finish this article without mentioning it. Brave and BAT is the most exciting movement I’ve witnessed and experienced in crypto since I first really started reading up on Bitcoin back in 2017.
A fast, well-designed web browser that blocks adverts and trackers and pays you a token to receive a measly (and non-obtrusive) 5 adverts per hour.
It still sounds too good to be true, and it’s not, it’s FUCKING not. Not even the token you are awarded is shit.
Basic Attention Token is a strong and promising currency. Better still, the withdrawal limit is ridiculously low, a 2 BAT minimum I believe. For the past 4 months I’ve earned around 15 BAT on average a month, for simply getting on with what I would have been doing anyway; browsing the web or my laptop, and phone.
Brave are currently boasting 5.5 million monthly active users. Wow. Just Wow.
Currency: BAT
Price: $0.266394 USD / 0.00002713 BTC
Listed on Exchanges: It would be easier to list what exchanges haven’t listed BAT. Even Coinbase have listed it!
How to earn: Download Brave, go to ‘reward settings’, enable ads, remember to set your ad settings to a max of 5 per hour to earn as much BAT as possible! Don’t just stop at your laptop either, download Brave to your phone, tablet, kid’s iPhone, your nan’s old desktop PC.
How often does it payout? Payouts are made once a month (usually around the 5th of 6th) and can be as small as 0.05 BAT but I believe you have to have at least 2 BAT to withdraw it your Uphold wallet. You also need to link an Uphold wallet which I believe requires KYC.
Links:
https://brave.com/?ref=mic562
‘Mobile Mining’, Attention Tokens, Search Engine Rewards — watch theses spaces!
Peace.
As of May 2020, You can no longer 'mine' ETN using the Electroneum App.