Coinmine is looking to unleash crypto mining onto the masses

Quick Take

  • Coinmine is building a plug-and-play mining device, Coinmine One, which comes with a compatible mobile app and proprietary operating system
  • The device will retail for $799, and is available for pre-order in two colors, white and clear
  • Coinmine One can mine multiple crypto networks including: Ethereum, Monero, and Zcash

While mining plays a vital role in securing and decentralizing crypto networks, it is too often reserved for technologically proficient individuals and large businesses in the crypto ecosystem. Coinmine aims to change that. 

The company is building a plug-and-play mining device, Coinmine One, enabling anyone to mine a host of cryptocurrencies from the comfort of their homes and or offices. The device "provides a new level of accessibility into an otherwise confusing activity, and makes crypto easy for everyone," says CoinMine. The firm announced Wednesday a fundraising round of $2 million, including big investors like Coinbase, Arrington Capital, Brian Norgard, Anthony Pompliano, and Balaji Srinivasan.

Coinmine has built a compatible mobile app enabling users to monitor their mining activity, manage their wallets, and change what networks that want their devices to mine on. At launch, Coinmine One users will have the ability to mine four different crypto networks: Ethereum, Monero, ZCash, and Ethereum Classic (although the device can only mine one network at a given time). The company plans on adding support to power networks and protocols such as Grin, DFINITY, Filecoin, Ravencoin, and even Bitcoin's Lightning.

The Coinmine mobile app

The ability to add new mining capabilities over-the-air is made possible by Coinmine's proprietary operating system, MineOS. MineOS enables Coinmine One to run different mining algorithms on one device and receive updates directly from Coinmine. That is to say, if a new crypto network comes online, owners of Coinmine One need not throw away their old devices and buy a new one that supports this network, they only have to wait until Coinmine updates their software. The ability to mine a new crypto network when it is released gives retail users access to new cryptocurrencies before they are even traded on exchanges.

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Coinmine is founded by Farbood (Farb) Nivi and Justin Lambert. Nivi was an early adopter of Bitcoin and was previously the CPO of Learnist, an online education app. Lambert was the head designer of the Pebble 2, a smartwatch made by Pebble, which was acquired in 2017 by wearable manufacturer Fitbit. “Throughout my entire career, I’ve worked to make complicated ideas simple, fun, and useful,” said Norgard, a Coinmine investor and Tinder's chief product officer. "When Farb initially came to me with the basis for Coinmine, I knew it was a radically novel solution to a messy problem -- it was as they say, a perfect match." 

Coinmine One will retail for $799, which according to Nivi, is significantly cheaper than the typical $1,000 a miner would spend on a GPU mining rig. It's available for pre-order and will come in two SKUs: white and clear. Coinmine will also take a 5% commission on coins mined through its devices. 


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Steven Zheng is a researcher for The Block. He joined The Block in August 2018. Steven graduated from St. John’s University with a degree in economics. Previously, he covered blockchain and crypto at Radicle, a startup analytics firm. He also had brief stints at Cheddar, a media startup, and Bowery Capital, a venture capital firm. He owns bitcoin. Follow Steven on Twitter at: @Dogetoshi

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