On legitimate mining of cryptocurrency in the browser - a feasibility study
This addresses the problem of monetizing digital media for website owners and users, offering an incremental alternative to ads with user consent.
The study investigated browser-based cryptocurrency mining as a legitimate monetization alternative to display ads, finding it offers a preferable user experience when hash rates are adjustable and that over 60% of participants preferred it if they received half the mined cryptocurrency, though it currently generates 46 times less revenue than ads.
Cryptocurrency mining in the browser has the potential to provide a new pay-as-you-go monetisation mechanism for consuming digital media over the Web. However, browser mining has recently received strong criticism due to illegitimate use of mining scripts in several popular websites (a practice called cryptojacking). Here we provide the first feasibility study of browser mining as a legitimate means of monetisation in terms of revenue, user consent and user experience within a specially built website. Our results compare browser mining to display advertisement and indicate browser mining provides a preferable user experience to advertising when the hash rate is user-adjustable. Furthermore, over 60% of participants would select browser mining over advertisement if they were invested in the ecosystem by obtaining half of the mined cryptocurrency. Our estimations show that browser mining currently generates revenue at a rate 46 times less than advertisement, however we would expect that gap to decrease as we observed a significant drop in mining difficulty after our tested cryptocurrency implemented ASIC-resistant mining measures. Overall, based on our results we find browser mining to be a legitimate alternative to display advertisement and conclude by discussing its current limitations and potential applications.