Unicef has turned to a novel kind of fundraising by using the processing power of people’s computers to raise money via cryptocurrency mining.

The Australian branch of the charity has set up a website - thehopepage.org - which harnesses a computer’s power to mine the Monero cryptocurrency, automatically converting and donating funds raised.

The service is powered by crypto-mining service Coinhive, and money raised will go towards the group’s work responding to the Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar.

It means users can ‘donate’ without actually giving any money to the charity, with more algorithms solved and transactions processed the longer a user keeps the page open.

"We wanted to leverage new emerging technologies to raise awareness about current humanitarian crises and raise funds to support children caught up in them," Jennifer Tierney, UNICEF Australia’s Director of Fundraising and Communications explained in a statement.

Users are able to choose how much of their device’s processing power the website can use, and are kept informed of its hash rate, or the speed at which the mining occurs - though a typical personal computer would only have the processing power to contribute small amounts.