Can you mine crypto with a Nintendo Switch?

28 November 2023

in Mining

Reading Time: 3 mins read

The cryptocurrency market is well known for being a live technological innovation and experimentation hub. Creativity is one of the few limits imposed on enthusiasts eager to experiment and show the world their solutions, which applies to crypto mining.

In particular, the Monero (XMR) community is usually seen experimenting with mining hardware. Recently, an anonymous miner posted a Nintendo Switch setup on the subreddit r/MoneroMining.

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It is possible to see a Monero mining interface running in the same 2017 Nintendo console that one day has probably hosted Super Mario. The Nintendo Switch appears to be producing 230 hashes per second in the picture.

[crypto-donation-box]

Nintendo Switch console mining Monero (XMR). Source: r/MoneroMining

Interestingly, RandomX, the Monero mining algorithm, allows for alternative experiments like this due to being ASIC-resistant. Miners can use simple CPUs or gaming devices to run the algorithm and try their luck at block discovery while supporting network security.

Is it profitable to mine Monero with a Nintendo Switch?

However, a 230 hashes per second (H/s) crypto mining setup will hardly result in any profits for its owner. Finbold turned to the MinerStat calculator to check how profitable mining XMR with a Nintendo Switch would be.

Considering the 230 H/s, a 6-watt power consumption, paying the 1% fee to the mining pool, and an electricity cost of $0.1/kWh, the Nintendo Switch experiment would result in losses for the miner. It would require approximately 770 months to mine 1 XMR with this setup, spending $0.43 per month.

Essentially, this specific miner would be paying around $331 per Monero. This is a 100% premium, considering XMR is trading at $166 by press time.

Monero mining calculator. Source: *MinerStat*

Meanwhile, the pseudonymous account, Untraceable on X (formerly Twitter), reported about Nintendo’s competitor console, Steam Deck, running Monero at 700 H/s, which is also not profitable considering a power consumption between 15-22 watts.

Notably, Monero miners usually see the activity as an alternative way to exchange XMR for fiat currencies, not as a business. In the sense that they will pay for their electricity bill and acquire the privacy coin in return with a premium over its price.

This trend has increased lately because cryptocurrency exchanges in highly regulated countries have stopped offering Monero to their customers. Therefore, people in these regions who want XMR can mine the coin using a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck console.

In 2021, Finbold reported about a YouTuber using his Nintendo Game Boy to mine Bitcoin (BTC). The game console was generating 0.8 hashes per second.

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