Honeyminer is crypto mining software you run on your PC (Windows version available now, Mac and Linux versions “are being developed”) that lets you earn bitcoin each day from crypto mining while your PC is not being used. The novel part is that you are earning bitcoin even though you are mining more CPU/GPU friendly cryptocurrencies such as Zcash (ZEC), Bytecoin (BCN), or Monero (XMR).

According to its developers, the Honeyminer software, which was launched in beta form last month, has had over 100,000 downloads so far. The way Honeyminer works is as follows:

It lets a user take part in a dynamic mining pool by running when the PC it is installed on is idle.

Its “proprietary algorithm will scan through dozens of cryptocurrencies to identify the most profitable coins to mine at any given time.”

All mined coins are automatically converted to Bitcoin on a daily basis. (You can leave your balance in Honeyminer or transfer it to your own Bitcoin wallet.)

One of the advisors of the New Jersey based startup, Noah Jessop, who is himself a crypto investor and an early stage venture capitalist at Founder Collective in San Francisco, told Coindesk:

“The miner doesn't have to do the math or manage all the configurations and settings, or manually check the price… We make it so that any surplus compute, so any laptop you aren't using all the way up to a rig that you run is automatically doing the most profitable computation.”

In case you are wondering how much the software costs, the answer is: nothing: “Honeyminer is (and always will be) free to use. Honeyminer supports development by taking a small share of the total mining earnings generated on our network. For users with 1 GPU the fee is 8% and for 2 GPUs or more the fee is 2.5%.”

The next question you may have is how much passive income you could generate with Honeyminer. Well, that depends on how powerful your PC is and also the cost of electricity where you live. However, for the purpose of illustration, the Honeyminer website says that if you have a PC that has a high-end graphics card (such as NVIDIA’s GeForce 1080Ti), you could make around $2 per day, or $6,519 over five years (assuming a Bitcoin growth rate of 20%).

Finally, with regard to security, the company says that it has taken the following steps to ensure that it sets a high standard for mining security:

Anonymous and encrypted passage of information through their servers through the use of “Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and aggressive encryption.”

Strong access control: 2-factor authentication to protect your account; strict password policies; smart session monitoring; and suspicious login activity monitors.

Fully audited source code.

Storage of users’ digital assets in cold storage (i.e. not connected to internet).

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