The smartphone is by far the world’s favorite piece of technology. It is estimated that there will be over 2 billion smartphones across the world by next year (ref: eMarketer). Over 80 percent of these smartphones run on Android operating system (data: IDC, 2015 Q2). Nowadays, smartphones are literally miniaturized computers, their processors pack anywhere between 1 GHz to 2.7 GHz processing power which is on par with a decent low-range/mid-range laptop currently in the market. Processing power of these devices come to use only while playing games or running few process intensive applications. But it can be put to use for other purposes as well. For example, altcoin mining.
Theoretically the processing power possessed by smartphones can be harnessed to mine cryptocurrencies. While mining bitcoin using the currently available smartphones is out of question, there are many altcoins that could be mined effectively on these handhelds. However, it may not be as effective as it would be if you use your PC instead of mobile phone for mining your coins. However, there are a few applications out there on the market that allows smartphone users to mine crypto coins on their handhelds.
While these mining applications use the mobile processor to mine a wide range of crypto coins, there are other set of applications like Eobot, Cointellect etc. which are mobile clients for cloud mining platforms . These mobile clients only allow users to visualize the performance of their mining pool on their Android powered smartphones.
While mining bitcoin using an Android device will cost you more than what you spend in terms of power, battery life etc. Mining altcoins based on CryptoNote and CryptoNight protocols are considered a bit easier on Android devices. Some of the coins that can be mined efficiently includes quarkcoin, bytecoin, mangocoinz, dogecoin (to an extent) etc. It is better to mine these altcoins and exchange it for bitcoin than attempting to mine bitcoin or litecoin on Android phones.
ARM processors used in Android phones generally do not generate enough hash rate to even get registered on the mining pool. However, high end Android phones like Samsung Galaxy S6 have a more powerful GPU and they can generate somewhere around 2 MH/s. The average hash rate generated by Android devices range between few hundred KH/s to single digit MH/s. To put it in perspective, it takes over 14 million Android devices mining bitcoin continuously for 24 hours or more to generate 1 bitcoin!
If you are looking for a unique experience while mining, the Mangocoinz is something worth exploring. The value of one mangocoinz is close to one cent and it can be exchanged to bitcoin. A specialized Android application is available to mine mangocoinz, which works based on the movement of the device. At least this way one can burn some calories while attempting to mine the altcoin. Another similar, soon to be launched, application is BitWalking which converts steps to BitWalking Dollars.
There are few instances where people have shared their story of success with mobile phone mining. One such instance was shared by a Minergate pool user who goes by the username Baresgeld. According to him, he is the owner of a mobile phone store and he runs an Android based miner he developed following instruction provided by yvg1900 (bitcointalk username) on all the smartphones in his store. He mentions that he mines CryptoNight protocol based altcoins on all the phones using Minergate mining pool. He claims the process to be efficient enough to be able to proportionally reduce the cost of phones on sale every day.
Bottom-line: Altcoin mining is more efficient on computers than mobile devices. Even though mining altcoin on an Android device is quite possible, on a longer run it reduces the effective battery life of the device.
2 billion customers worldwide to get smartphones by 2016 – eMarketer
Smartphone OS market share, 2015 Q2 – IDC
It takes 14 million Android phones to earn one bitcoin – PC Mag
(((Underbridge 
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leforteelise 
So after abusing the batteries and overheating all the phones in his store, Baresgeld sells them as second-hand, right? Or are his unwitting customers paying ‘new’ price for a phoneski which has already seen heavy usage?
How do you imagine a phone that’s plugged in “abuses” or even uses the battery?
I don’t know about yours, but my phone battery gets hot in a ‘plugged in, used hard’ situation, suggesting it’s either 1) being used or 2) being heated by the hot CPU.
Either alternative would affect battery life; note that Gautham explicitly mentions that intensive mining reduces effective battery life of the device.
Also, you’re responding to a comment from ~2 years ago, and Android mining is now even less relevant than when the article was published.
Smartphones have increased in power and number of cores/threads, and altcoins are increasingly more relevant in mining as BTC reaches levels where only pools or megamining facilities can compete. I made nearly $4/day after electricity with a 3 year old laptop on an altcoin recently. If there was an Android miner available for it, I’d get less coin per CPU but FAR greater yield per watt, anywhere from 8 to 12:1. That’s enough to consider compiling for Android.
What altcoin were you mining?
the phones are still covered by warranty, so not a problem)
Aw, you guys are just great about buying slightly used machines, with unknown software installed by a 3rd party, as though they’re brand shiny new.
Me, I prefer my box to still be sealed.
I come from a country where it takes a guy 30 seconds to seal a phone box in his basement, so I don’t trust seals to be honest)
Dont download any apps which are mentioned in this article. Some of them are malware and some are scams which have continued to this day. (2016-08-24)
2.7GHZ ARM is nowhere near the speed of 2.7GHZ x86 power core for core.
it doesnt translate that way
2015 this was written. 2 years later, bitcoin is worth $17,000 per. Dude bought a Lamborghini. I have bitcoin & altcryptocoin apps on my galaxy s8. Fortune indeed favors the bold.