HTC partners with Midas Labs to bring crypto mining to smartphone users for the first time

Mobile phone manufacturer HTC has been going all out to bring blockchain to smartphone users, and last week, the firm announced a partnership with Taiwanese startup Midas Labs to bring crypto mining to mobile phone users for the first time.

With an app called DeMiner, developed by Midas Labs, Exodus 1S users are able to mine open-source cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) easily and cost-efficiently; that is, the app enables the smartphone to be comparable to regular desktop computers in terms of hashrate ability but consume far less electricity.

According to the startup, the app inactivates mining automatically when the phone is in regular use or isn’t plugged in. It will be available for download by the end of Q2, 2020.

Earlier, Midas Labs has raised a seed round led by Proof of Capital, a blockchain-focused venture capital fund managed by Phil Chen, who leads the Exodus team for HTC as the Decentralized Chief Officer.

The executive said the the dominance of giant mining pools threatens the crypto world. They pour a huge amount of computing power into the network so as to enjoy a greater probability to be given the opportunity to add a block into the chain and reap the rewards.

To him, making crypto mining accessible for everyone is the most effective way to change the status quo. By making the process cost-efficient, he believes the DeMiner app incentivizes individual miners to help decentralize the network.

Dr. Jri Lee, founder and CEO of Midas Labs and a professor at National Taiwan University said today, a typical laptop consumes around 65W of electricity -- which costs $0.16 -- to mine $0.04 worth of Monero per day, and the app is able to cut the cost by at least 50%.

Based in Taiwan, Midas Labs is an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design company specializing in blockchain mining and associated applications. Its unique “super hash engine” provides the world’s first re-programmable mining ASIC, a chip that supports dozens of hash algorithms.

Proof of Capital said it’s excited to work with the Midas Labs team, whose members are experienced experts in the IC industry. Believing that Asia is the global center of crypto mining, the firm is also confident about the market potential of the team’s innovation.

〔Original :Meet Startup @ TW〕
https://meet.bnext.com.tw/intl/articles/view/46328