Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive • Hacker News Board

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#21

Post by nerdponx » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #19

This is smart...or maybe not. Has anybody done the calculation here? I am very curious to know into how much $s the 10s translate to

Not to mention that some (perhaps many) people will be running their devices off of the store's own power outlets. So the store will actually be paying the electrical bill for at least some of that mining.

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#22

Post by Tinyyy » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

This isn’t mining Bitcoin, it’s using Coinhive (https://coinhive.com) to mine Monero

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#23

Post by ntietz » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:41 PM UTC

One of the big problems I have with this (and with mining, in general) is that it's attempting to create value by simply wasting electricity. Come on, we should not be spending CPU cycles just for the sake of spending CPU cycles...

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#24

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

crb002 wrote: post #9

CPU for services seems legit as long as they give an affirmative checkoff.

It's stealing money from the user via their electricity bill.

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#25

Post by criddell » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #16

criddell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered what the ROI would be for me to leave my home office computer mining bitcoin while I'm at work. I know the likelihood of me mining something is tiny, but so is the expected payout when I buy a lotto ticket. I spent about $20 / year on lotto tickets (basically whenever Powerball gets near a record jackpot). That same amount of money will keep my i5 ThinkPad running for a long time. Am I more likely to mi…

I don't think anyone mines for bitcoins by themselves anymore - they join a pool so you get a small guaranteed payout.

I have no interest in a small guaranteed payout.

I'm asking if I have $20 to buy Powerball tickets (with a chance to win $1 billion) or $20 to buy electricity for my i5-based mining machine, how do the odds compare?

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#26

Post by rileyphone » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

zenon wrote: post #5

The Coinhive script mines Monero: https://coinhive.com/ . It's been a while since JavaScript Bitcoin mining was feasible :)

I really like the idea of this as a captcha alternative, especially with the "train our neural nets" approach google has been taking recently with them.

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#27

Post by 55555 » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #16

criddell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered what the ROI would be for me to leave my home office computer mining bitcoin while I'm at work. I know the likelihood of me mining something is tiny, but so is the expected payout when I buy a lotto ticket. I spent about $20 / year on lotto tickets (basically whenever Powerball gets near a record jackpot). That same amount of money will keep my i5 ThinkPad running for a long time. Am I more likely to mi…

I don't think anyone mines for bitcoins by themselves anymore - they join a pool so you get a small guaranteed payout.

You can still mine yourself and that might appeal to someone who likes buying lottery tickets. Mining yourself at least has the possibility of positive ROI as opposed to a guarantee of losing money.

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#28

Post by freeflight » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:43 PM UTC

maltalex wrote: post #11

flibble wrote: post #2

Does anyone have an idea of the ROI on this? I'm thinking you'd need a massive number of 10 second to mine any meaningful number of BTC on consumer laptops.

It makes no economic sense at all. Mining Bitcoin using CPUs is unprofitable. They're basically gaining cents worth of bitcoins using dollars worth of electricity. See https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/41276/in-the-asi...

Another comment pointed out they are not literally mining Bitcoin but rather Monero [0], which seems to be profitable to mine on CPUs and SoC.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monero_(cryptocurrency)

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#29

Post by ErnestedCode » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:43 PM UTC

eberkund wrote: post #18

QAPereo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they paying for that electricity?

Sort of, I'm assuming a lot of people bring their chargers with them if they're using the WiFi at Starbucks

I suppose the cost benefit depends on whether they stay in the store charging their laptops longer because of that 10 second delay. If the customer plugs in their laptop at 1pm and plans to leave at 1:30pm, then at least they'd be making money 10 seconds longer while spending the same amount of money on electricity. If the customer leaves at 1:30:10, then they'd be paying extra for the time. But in any case, they're not paying for any extra hardware.

Re: Starbucks in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires uses CoinHive

#30

Post by 55555 » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:44 PM UTC

ryangittins wrote: post #7

flibble wrote: post #2

Does anyone have an idea of the ROI on this? I'm thinking you'd need a massive number of 10 second to mine any meaningful number of BTC on consumer laptops.

Even if they did this in all Starbucks locations, I can't see it really making any money. Ten seconds on a laptop CPU rounds to zero. Coinhive has just never made any sense to me in practice. Maybe 5+ years ago, but not today. What a mismatch of effort and timing.

Coinhash mines monero and it is a business aimed towards hackers who want to monetize websites they have access to.