HTC Brings Crypto Mining to Its Exodus Blockchain Phone

Taiwan-based tech behemoth HTC is to bring crypto mining on its Exodus blockchain phone, but users are not going to become rich.

According to the April 10 announcement by Forbes, the company has established partnership with Mida Labs to use its DeMiner app on the Exodus 1S model. The app lets users mine Monero (XMR) and can earn users up to $0.0038 in the crypto on average daily. The electricity used to carry out mining tasks would come to less than half the income from mining, as the announcement states.

That income is not able to repay the cost of the phone in any reasonable time span, and, in fact, would take roughly 13,680 days (around 37 years) to earn the value of one unit of XMR at the current price of around $52 a coin.

However, HTC notes the effort is going to bring further decentralization to crypto mining, a process which involves computers in securing the blockchain and process transactions in return for block rewards.

Cryptocurrency mining has evolved from using computer processors to graphics cards and even dedicated processors called ASICs for some blockchains as participants tried to keep mining profitable amid increasing mining difficulty. This way, the ability to mine on a mobile phone is at least novel and may increase adoption and education regarding cryptocurrency.

According to HTC, DeMiner app — expected to be introduced sometime in Q2 2020 — used on the Exodus is roughly equivalent to a desktop computer in terms of mining (or hashing) power, but incurs lower energy expenses.

Phil Chen, HTC’s decentralized chief officer, said in the Forbes report:

“The question is not should we use an ASIC or a CPU. The question is how can we further decentralize and ensure a more inclusive monetary system?”

HTC introduced the Exodus 1S last October, praising it as the only mobile phone which can run a full Bitcoin node. The Exodus range allows users to store cryptocurrencies in the built-in Zion hardware wallet with claimed “military-grade” security.

Early last month, the company unveiled a 5G router which can also support a full Bitcoin node.