[Denis Radin] Mining crypto in browser: GPU, WebAssembly, JavaScript and all the good things to try

Content level: Beginner
A year ago an unnamed investor asked me for a consultancy on topic:"If this is possible to mine crypto in a browser using GPU?". The talk shares some insights/outcome found during the research and give an idea of what to expect when mining cryptocurrencies using a pool of browser-based miners. Let`s review mining as a top-notch performance challenge for the Web platform.

Denis Radin
Evolution Gaming / Netherlands

Transcript

1. Mining crypto in browser GPU, WebAssembly and all the good things to try
2. @PixelsCommander denis.radin@gmail.com
5. State of the art games engineering
6. + Using React/Redux for managing HTML UI and game graphics
8. ChallengingNative.com Fast web applications development, profiling and optimization
11. Mining as a bleeding edge performance challenge for web platform
12. What the hack is mining?
20. What if I want to add a block? And what if everyone wants?
23. Blockchain might get out of control So we need to limit the ability for adding blocks
24. Proof of work Solving math problems
25. Solved task = added block
26. Сryptocurrency rewards us for keeping chain going!
27. Mining Bitcoin in browser Starting from the mainstream
29. 00000000000000000 Hash to start with for valid block
31. SHA256 for hashing blocks Which is a well explained algorithm
32. Nonce: ?
33. 1.4x10^20 Chance to get a right nonce... A lot of work!
34. So miners unite in pools...
35. And what if your users will mine for you in a pool?
36. Time for...
37. Is my hash implementation slow? Nope
38. May be workers are better? Doing job in parallel is definitely something to keep eye on
39. Time for...
40. What about WebAssembly? The promise to have nearly native performance...
41. Time for...
42. I heard mining on GPU is fast...
45. In WebGL we can mine with pixel shaders Every pixel is a thread
48. Time for...
49. And reading results from a texture Every pixel is a result for particular nonce
51. GetPixel and check in JS for every nonce hashed Let`s reduce this performance leak by 1024 times
52. Time for...
54. 200x improvement but still no money... Lets see what happened
55. Evolution of mining tooling
56. CPU era
59. GPU era As fast as 1600 CPUs
62. ASIC era As fast as 20000 GPU
65. 20000 GPUs? Is not this broken? So new generation of cryptocurrency fixes this
66. Etherium? Yes, it is ASICs-proof! But...
67. 3Gb RAM Required for operating algorithm
68. Web is failing here... Nor JS nor WebGL can allocate 3Gb
69. Alternatives? Algorithm should be ASIC-proof but available under Web limitations
70. XMR Monero This would work...
71. Time for...
72. And even better! There is mining as a JS plugin proposed
73. CoinHive The mainstream
74. CoinImp Zero commission
75. CryptoNoter Open source
76. Pros? GDPR will make traditional monetisation with ads less efficient, some opportunities there
77. Ethics? You decide, but sometimes it makes sense
78. Is it worth money? You decide, but cryptos are there for a long
79. @PixelsCommander denis.radin@gmail.com