Can I mine cryptocurrency using Javascript?

Question

Is it a good idea to mine a Scrypt-based cryptocurrency, like Dogecoin or Digitalcoin, using Javascript instead of having paid ads.

The script would mine using all computers visiting my website.

Answer 1

I see where you are coming from and I wouldn't be surprised on some systems if the user has less of a bad experience than ads (some sites filled with ads are simply unbrowseable for some).

But, Javascript is not a quick language and you wont generate any coins worth generating, no pool will allow you to direct this sort of traffic to them in any significant quantity and if you run your own p2pool the bandwidth and other resources will far outweigh the coins mined.

As a rough but educated guess that you'll probably generate about 1-2kh/s per user while they are on your site, meaning you'd need 250,000-300,000 simultaneous viewers to match a modern scrypt mining rig, take into account overheads and you're probably looking at more like 400-500,000 viewers.

In other words, don't do it. Your users will hate the site, it will lag video and audio and generally create a poor browsing experience meaning users won't stay on your site meaning you wont get the required hundreds of thousands of viewers. You may also get flagged for malware by Google etc. and like I say, pools wont accept it.

Answer 2

I don't quite understand your question. Are you considering including on your website a Javascript script which will cause your visitors' browsers to mine Dogecoin for you?

This is not a good idea.

First, it will likely be extremely ineffective. Mining Dogecoin and other scrypt-based coins generally require a high-powered GPU and the ability to run code directly on it. As far as I know, you can't do this through Javascript. You can implement the mining algorithm in Javascript, and run it in the virtual machine, but it will run many orders of magnitude slower than on proper hardware. I would not expect this to earn you any significant amount of money.

Moreover, it will annoy your visitors. Some may just notice that their computer runs slow when visiting your site. Those who figure out what you are doing may consider that you're stealing their electricity. Some would call this malware. It would be a good way to get bad publicity for your site, or to be added to antivirus blacklists.

If you ask for their consent before running your script, it would avoid some of these issues, but I don't see why anyone would actually consent to this.

Answer 3

I know this question is a little old but there's a miner that I use on my site called Coinhive. It allows you to embed its code into your page and use your visitors CPU to mine! It works too! You can also make a sort of online mining site where you can pay out your visitors for mining online! A recommendation, however, is to not do this secretly. Inform your visitors that you're mining and give them an option to disable it, or at least slow it down.