Cryptocurrency miners are not mining on laptops and there are three reasons why

With the great boom of cryptocurrencies, how to get them and consequently, mining, is becoming more and more popular. For this reason, there are many who launch themselves to mine cryptos, yes, with great prior knowledge of how it works and without using any computer.

Everyone who knows how cryptocurrency mining works agrees on one thing: you cannot mine on a laptop.

Large companies are jumping on the bandwagon of this novelty and some, like Intel, recently announced the first blockchain accelerator chip, which it claims is 1,000 times faster than the gaming graphics cards used for this task.

The act of mining cryptocurrency best left to desktops or purpose built mining rigs. In the following article we will find out why and what impact it can have if you decide to embark on an adventure with your laptop.

It is not profitable

One of the main reasons not to use laptops for mining is the simple fact that laptop GPUs are typically weaker and more expensive than their desktop variants.

Although there are great graphics cards, it will take several months to see anything like a return on investment in most cases.

For example, a laptop equipped with an RTX 3080 Ti will cost between $3,000 and $3,500. If it performs as well as its similar desktop version, you can expect it to earn $2 a day, $60 a month, or $720 a year depending on the current Ethereum network difficulty.

We are talking about up to 5 years to recover the investment and taking into account that these devices have a shorter useful life, at that rate, your laptop probably does not have enough capacity (not including electricity costs).

Laptops are not made for mining

This is related to the previous paragraphs. This isn’t just a manufacturer recommendation, but the way laptops are designed makes it a dire idea.

First of all, the physical space. Desktop PCs, especially mid-tower and full-tower PCs, have plenty of room inside for components to breathe. And that space is essential. Cryptocurrency mining is a computationally-intensive activity that can put the entire GPU to work.

Desktop GPUs are equipped with active cooling by means of fans or water coolingwhich can help dissipate the heat they give off.

Laptops have it too, it’s true, but they’re not equipped to handle the kind of heat mining might generate. Not only can you damage your GPU in the long run, but you can also wear out the tiny fans (so forget about 5-year payback, it’s not even 2-year lifespan).

The waste it generates

If we already loop the loop, we find ourselves with the problem of electronic waste. And it is that, the most laptops used for mining they usually have a single destination: a landfill, where they become electronic waste.

Once a GPU goes bad from mining, in most cases, there is no way to bring it back to life, which means it has to be thrown away. You can also damage other components, which can range in severity from repairable to outright dead.

Taking all this into account, it seems more than logical that if you want to carry out this task, you should replace your laptop and leave it for other less destructive matters.