Blockchain technology is by far one of the most transformative technologies of this era. It is seeing growing use across several industries, and the smartphone sector has turned out to be one such sector where blockchain has demonstrated immense potential.

From inbuilt crypto wallets on Samsung devices to fully blockchain-powered mobile devices from Sirin Labs, this is a new niche that’s developing in the cryptocurrency industry. Some of these smartphones even allow cryptocurrency mining, but this technology is still in its infancy and the endeavour isn’t profitable enough to be worth the time and the effort.

One of the players in the smartphone market actively developing blockchain-powered devices is Taiwanese electronics giant HTC. The smartphone maker has launched multiple blockchain-powered devices over the past years in its Exodus series. From being able to run a full Bitcoin node, to adding support of various crypto wallets, HTC devices have covered all grounds.

Monero mining coming in 2020

The major smartphone manufacturer has now announced that it would allow mining of the popular cryptocurrency Monero (XMR), via its Exodus devices. The company the announcement on April 10, thanking its partnership with ASIC chip design firm Midas Labs, stating that this partnership would enable XMR mining on select HTC devices via the DeMiner app, set to be available for download in Q2 2020.

Cryptocurrency mining has turned out to be quite an expensive and power-hungry endeavour. HTC and Midas labs plan to address this notion and make the crypto mining cost and energy effective by using mobile devices and a ground-breaking application.

The DeMiner app is said to be capable enough with its hashrate ability, which according to reports, can be compared to desktop computers without heavy energy consumption. Furthermore, Midas Labs would allow users to mine at least $0.0038 XMR per day on an average with 50% less electric cost.

About the DeMiner app, Dr Jri Lee, CEO and founder of Midas Labs, commented as follows:

“We developed the DeMiner app such that a smartphone device will have a hashrate comparable to a desktop while consuming much less power. This enables mobile devices to be suitable for cryptocurrency mining (in a plugged-in state) for the first time. Starting from open-source frameworks, we restructured and optimized mining for mobile.”

Taking power back from large mining pools

As per the report, the application is designed with the intention of distributing the hashrate by enabling access to crypto mining via mobile devices. As per Phil Chen, decentralized chief officer at HTC:

“Mining on mobile is an important research topic in understanding the development of secure crypto networks. The number of mobile phones in 2020 is approaching 3.5 Billion, which would further decentralize and distribute the hash rate and mining power of such crypto networks.”

The executive added that the crypto industry is facing the problem of hashrate domination by giant mining pools. Democratizing the process via mobile devices would help address problems like this.

As previously reported by The Daily Chain, HTC is also set to release a blockchain-based router capable of running a full bitcoin node independently from anywhere. Dubbed The Exodus 5G Hub, the device will also feature other key integrated decentralized features including ProtonMail email service, Brave web browser, and VPN incognito, and is expected to launch between April – June 2020.