Cryptocurrency mining is definitely right back in the middle of a new craze with the demand keenly being felt particularly in terms of PC hardware and particularly so within the already limited stock of graphics cards. It seems, however, that one modder decided to test a very unusual theory. Namely, could a Nintendo Game Boy actually be used to mine? – Well, the answer is apparently yes. Albeit, as you might expect, there are more than a few ‘buts’ attached to it!
Game Boy Modded into Crypto Miner!
The steps involved in this process are clearly more than a little complicated and are perhaps best explained in the video created by the modder himself (stacksmashing) below. If you do, however, want the brief version, then these are basically the hurdles than had to be overcome:
- A means had to be found to make the Game Boy connectable to the internet (which in itself was clearly quite a difficult task)
- Software was required on a blank cartridge so that the mining program could be run
- Various of the modding tools and peripherals regarded firmware coding to be applied to it would successfully get to the task of ‘making money’
Was It Any Good?
Well, in something that certainly surprised me, following all the above modifications (and clearly more than a few other tweaks), this Nintendo Game Boy was indeed capable of mining cryptocurrency. In something that didn’t surprise me though, it wasn’t very good at it. Operating at around 0.8 hashes per second, in terms of generating one single Bitcoin, it would take (at a rough guess) something in the region of hundreds of millions of years of constant operation to achieve this. So, yeah, not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme and, as such, don’t expect to see banks of Game Boys attached to an elaborate mining rack.
It is, however, hard to deny that this is pretty cool and, as such, if you want to show the modder some love, you can check out their YouTube channel via the link here!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
