Would love a Coinhive integration mod!

Started by Chalky, October 15, 2017, 04:04:37 PM

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Chalky

Hi all.  I wanted to put the idea out there for a Coinhive integration mod, to monetise SMF forums by using visitors' CPU to mine cryptocurrency.

Coinhive: https://coinhive.com/ uses javascript to mine within the user's browser.

In-browser mining scripts like Coinhive have had a bad rap in the last few weeks due to the number of websites using it nefariously, without their visitors' knowledge.  I'd be looking to do this ethically, so an SMF mod would need to include a notification to visitors that the mining was taking place as well as an opt-in/opt-out facility for logged-in members that disables the script for individual users when opted out.

There are already at least two Wordpress plugins that do this with the opt-in/opt-out feature promised for future versions:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-monero-miner-coin-hive/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/hive-miner/

I think this would be a great feature for many forums since it allows monetisation without annoying advertising, trackers, cookies or personal data collection, and the script is well-suited to websites where visitors spend longer periods of time, eg. forums!

I foresee a mod like this becoming very much in demand as cryptocurrency becomes mainstream.  Ordinary web users are already sick of advertising and increasingly paranoid about the amount of personal data harvested by the likes of Google ads.  Done properly, in-browser cryptocurrency mining is a far more ethical, privacy-compatible way for monetising websites.

I hope idealistically that somebody will get as excited about this idea as I am and develop the mod for free, but I may be able to at least contribute to the development, depending on the figures involved.

Thank you for reading!


SlyBaldGuy

I second this. I think it would be a great Mod to integrate the features of Coin Hive. You could have the captcha placed so that you need it to login, post, etc. All optional of course. You could also have the javascript in the site that automatically mines with an opt-in or asks someone to click to start the mining. It would be great to offer this based on membergroup.


Chalky

Thanks SlyBaldGuy!

After playing with Coinhive's Simple UI I'd like to add more features to the wishlist.


  • The ability for members to adjust their own threads and throttle,
  • Ability to track stats by individual user and for each member to be able to view his own stats.
This way members could be incentivised for contributing more.

There shouldn't be a UI or graphic on every page though as that would dominate the forum too much.  It's supposed to run inconspicuously in the background, so it should run everywhere on the forum unless the user has disabled it, but the stats, settings and any UI should be confined to member profiles with a master one in the admin dashboard.

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