• Press Releases
    • Submit a press release
    • Read All
  • Advertise
  • Contact us
Crypto.com Logo Crypto.com Logo
Bitcoinist.com
No Result
View All Result
  • Bitcoin
    • News
    • Price
    • Businesses
    • Acceptance
    • Technology
    • Investment
    • Regulation
    • Reviews
    • All Bitcoin News
  • Altcoins
    • News
    • Price
    • Ethereum
    • Ripple
    • Litecoin
    • EOS
    • NAGA
    • All Altcoin News
  • Tech
    • Blockchain
    • Security
    • FinTech
  • Industry
    • Industry News
    • Press Releases
  • Price
    • Bitcoin Price
    • Ethereum Price
    • Litecoin Price
    • Binance Coin Price
  • How to
    • Buy gift cards/mobile Top Ups with Cryptos
    • What Is Bitcoin?
    • Best Bitcoin Wallet
    • Bitcoin vs Ethereum
    • Why Use Blockchain Technology?
    • Bitcoin Cash ABC vs. Bitcoin Cash SV
    • How to Buy Cryptocurrency
    • Bitcoin Mining
    • Best Bitcoin Brokers
    • Best Bitcoin Forex Brokers
    • How To Earn Bitcoin
    • What is Facebook Libra?
    • Ripple and XRP: The Complete Guide
    • Bitcoin Casinos – Where, What and How to Play
  • Events
  • Play Games
  • Play Casino Games
  • Win 1 BTC
Breaking News: This Bankrupt Crypto Firm Returns 27,000 Mining Rigs To Pay Off Loan
  • Bitcoin
    • News
    • Price
    • Businesses
    • Acceptance
    • Technology
    • Investment
    • Regulation
    • Reviews
    • All Bitcoin News
  • Altcoins
    • News
    • Price
    • Ethereum
    • Ripple
    • Litecoin
    • EOS
    • NAGA
    • All Altcoin News
  • Tech
    • Blockchain
    • Security
    • FinTech
  • Industry
    • Industry News
    • Press Releases
  • Price
    • Bitcoin Price
    • Ethereum Price
    • Litecoin Price
    • Binance Coin Price
  • How to
    • Buy gift cards/mobile Top Ups with Cryptos
    • What Is Bitcoin?
    • Best Bitcoin Wallet
    • Bitcoin vs Ethereum
    • Why Use Blockchain Technology?
    • Bitcoin Cash ABC vs. Bitcoin Cash SV
    • How to Buy Cryptocurrency
    • Bitcoin Mining
    • Best Bitcoin Brokers
    • Best Bitcoin Forex Brokers
    • How To Earn Bitcoin
    • What is Facebook Libra?
    • Ripple and XRP: The Complete Guide
    • Bitcoin Casinos – Where, What and How to Play
  • Events
  • Play Games
  • Play Casino Games
  • Win 1 BTC
Bitcoinist.com
No Result
View All Result
Breaking News: This Bankrupt Crypto Firm Returns 27,000 Mining Rigs To Pay Off Loan
Blockchain Offers Viable Alternative to Outdated Online Ad Tech
Advertisement

CoinHive In-Browser Software is ‘Mining’ $250K Per Month, Research Finds

Ian Tozer by Ian Tozer
4 years ago
in Mining, Altcoins, News, News teaser
0
Advertisement

New academic research released by RWTH Aachen University has discovered that cryptocurrency miner CoinHive is very profitable. In fact, it’s generating over $250,000 worth of Monero profit every month by hi-jacking internet users’ CPUs. One of the users could have easily been you. 


As reported by The Next Web, the research itself provides a broad overview of browser-mining activity across the Web. It reveals that Monero accounts for 75 percent of all browser-based cryptocurrency mining. The organization CoinHive is behind most of it. Thus, it is no wonder that security and investigation reporter Brain Krebs warns readers by claiming:

Don't wait! Jump on this Crypto Deal and get a 150% Welcome Bonus plus 100 Free Spins on your deposit today!

Multiple security firms recently identified cryptocurrency mining service Coinhive as the top malicious threat to Web users.

What is CoinHive?

CoinHive offers an in-browser, JavaScript-based miner for the Monero Blockchain. People can embed the mining script into a website. Then, when a user visits the website, the script will run the miner from the user’s browser. It will then mine XMR. Whoever embeds the code receives the mining profit.

CoinHive also offers a ‘shortlink solution’. This works much like a regular link — except that, to reach the destination, the user’s machine must perform some hashes (the number of which is set by its creator).

CoinHive argues that these services create the possibility for “an ad-free experience.” In actuality, it has created a new cyber-threat. Users are now paying other people through their CPU power — and they can be completely unaware.

BitStarz Player Lands $2,459,124 Record Win! Could you be next big winner?
570% up to 12 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 1 BTC in bonuses every day, only at Wild.io. Play Now!

CoinHive Set to Make $1,000,000 in Annual Revenue

The university researchers found that CoinHive is very profitable. Its ad-hoc browser-mining botnet is responsible for 1.18 percent of the entire Monero network. Moreover, the analysis suggests it is generating over 300 XMR (approximately $24,000) per week.

In the research, they note:

If we sum up the block rewards of the actually mined blocks over the observation period of [four] weeks, we find that Coinhive [sic] earned 1,271 XMR. Similar to other cryptocurrencies, Monero’s exchange-rate fluctuates heavily, at time of writing one XMR is worth 200 USD, having peaked at 400 USD at the beginning of the year. Thus, given the current exchange-rate, Coinhive [sic] mines Moneros worth around $250,000 per month […]

CoinHive keeps 30 percent of all mined XMR for itself. That’s $75,000 a month, or almost a million dollars in annual income.

Only 10 Users Dominate CoinHive’s Short Link Service

By scraping through CoinHive’s link database, the research found that there are almost two million active short links. Essentially, they force users to undertake Monero mining. Most of these links lead to video streams or filesharing sites. Yet, what’s more alarming is that most of the profit goes to only 10 users:

Coinhive’s [sic] link forwarding service is dominated by links from only 10 users. They mostly redirect to streaming videos and filesharing sites. We find that most short links can be resolved within minutes, however, some links require millions of hashes to be computed which is infeasible.

That some links are never set to resolve is significant — it highlights how malicious this new service can become.

Bitcoinist has already reported on 200,000 routers in Brazil being injected with modified CoinHive code. Because the code was injected into the router, users were mining Monero in the background of literally every page they visited.

It’s becoming clear that alongside rapid innovation, the blockchain industry is also bringing new threats. Unsuspecting in-browser mining is a pertinent threat that is worrisome. Fortunately, there are some attempts to solve this problem already. For example, security researcher Troy Mursche recommends the browser extension minerBlock. It uses JavaScript detection and a blacklist to limit the possibility of users mining cryptocurrency unexpectedly.

It seems like we are now at war with a new cyber-threat, and it’s turning out to be very profitable.

How will the war on in-browser cryptocurrency mining play-out? Let us know in the comments below!

[Correction: This story was originally reported by The Next Web.]


Images courtesy of Pexels, Shutterstock.

ShareTweetShareShare

Sign Up for Our Newsletter!

For updates and exclusive offers enter your email.

I consent to my submitted data being collected and stored.

Ian Tozer

Ian Tozer

Related Posts

Groundhog Day bitcoin altcoins crypto winter

Groundhog Day: Will We Get Six More Weeks Of Crypto Winter?

3 days ago
Floki Inu

Community Votes To Burn 4.97 Trillion Tokens Of Shiba Inu Rival, Floki Inu

6 days ago
These Altcoins Could Be Ones To Watch For, Santiment Suggests

These Altcoins Could Be Ones To Watch For, Santiment Suggests

1 week ago
Aptos (APT)

Aptos (APT) Jumps 130% In 7 Days, What’s Driving The Price?

1 week ago
Polkadot Speeds Past Cardano To Become Top Crypto By Dev Activity

Polkadot Speeds Past Cardano To Become Top Crypto By Dev Activity

2 weeks ago
AI crypto token chatGPT

How ChatGPT Could Drive A Dramatic AI Crypto Token Narrative

2 weeks ago
Please login to join discussion

Premium Partners

Premium Casino Partners

Top Casinos

BitStarz
BitStarz
Punt Casino
Punt Casino
mBit
mBit
Metaspins
Metaspins
1xBit
1xBit
Coinplay
Coinplay
K8
K8
Vegas Casino
Vegas Casino

Sportbooks

Coinplay
Coinplay

Press Releases

  • Crypto Is Here to Stay. Here’s Why You Should Invest...

    6 hours ago
  • Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) Bounce While Snowfall...

    6 hours ago
  • Avalanche (AVAX), Gala (GALA), and Orbeon Protocol (ORBN)...

    8 hours ago
  • As Bitcoin And Filecoin Continue To Rise, The Most...

    1 day ago
  • Which Cryptocurrencies You Should Buy – Big Eyes...

    1 day ago

Bitcoin news portal providing breaking news, guides, price analysis about decentralized digital money & blockchain technology.

Bitcoin

  • News
  • Price
  • Businesses
  • Acceptance
  • Technology
  • Investment
  • Regulation
  • Reviews

Altcoins

  • News
  • Price
  • Ethereum
  • Ripple
  • Litecoin
  • EOS
  • NAGA

Categories

  • Blockchain
  • Security
  • FinTech
  • Technology
  • Trending
  • Breaking News
  • Press Releases
  • How to

Pages

  • Contact us
  • Editorial Policy
  • Advertise
  • Crypto Prices from Nomics
© 2023 Bitcoinist.com. All Rights Reserved.
  • Bitcoin
    • News
    • Price
    • Businesses
    • Acceptance
    • Technology
    • Investment
    • Regulation
    • Reviews
    • All Bitcoin News
  • Altcoins
    • News
    • Price
    • Ethereum
    • Ripple
    • Litecoin
    • EOS
    • NAGA
    • All Altcoin News
  • Tech
    • Blockchain
    • Security
    • FinTech
  • Industry
    • Industry News
    • Press Releases
  • Price
    • Bitcoin Price
    • Ethereum Price
    • Litecoin Price
    • Binance Coin Price
  • How to
    • Buy gift cards/mobile Top Ups with Cryptos
    • What Is Bitcoin?
    • Best Bitcoin Wallet
    • Bitcoin vs Ethereum
    • Why Use Blockchain Technology?
    • Bitcoin Cash ABC vs. Bitcoin Cash SV
    • How to Buy Cryptocurrency
    • Bitcoin Mining
    • Best Bitcoin Brokers
    • Best Bitcoin Forex Brokers
    • How To Earn Bitcoin
    • What is Facebook Libra?
    • Ripple and XRP: The Complete Guide
    • Bitcoin Casinos – Where, What and How to Play
  • Events
  • Play Games
  • Play Casino Games
  • Win 1 BTC

© 2022 Bitcoinist. All Rights Reserved.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy Center or Cookie Policy.