Let’s be brutally honest. You will not get rich mining crypto on a phone. In fact, you will likely lose money if you factor in battery degradation.
However, the math changes based on your situation:
Your phone has no active cooling fan (unlike a PC). When you run a Cpu Miner Android app, the CPU runs at 100% load. Temperatures will climb to 70°C–85°C (158°F–185°F).
XMRig is the industry standard for Monero mining. There is no GUI; you compile it via command line. Cpu Miner Android
MinerGate has a controversial history on PC (high fees), but their mobile app is surprisingly functional for beginners. It automatically chooses the most profitable coin for your CPU.
Some apps allow you to merge mine or mine Scrypt-based coins. However, the hashrates are generally very low compared to even a budget desktop PC.
| Coin | Algorithm | Suitable for Android CPU? | |------|-----------|----------------------------| | Monero (XMR) | RandomX | Yes, but very low hash rate | | Verus Coin (VRSC) | VerusHash | Better optimized for mobile | | Raptoreum (RTM) | GhostRider | No (high resource use) | | Dogecoin (DOGE) | Scrypt | No (ASIC dominated) | Let’s be brutally honest
Verus Coin is often considered one of the more mobile-friendly options due to its lower difficulty and efficient algorithm.
Smartphones are designed for burst performance (opening an app, taking a photo), not sustained loads. Running a CPU miner at 100% for hours causes thermal throttling. Prolonged heat can kill the battery, unsolder internal components, or cause the screen to delaminate.
We create a class responsible for the actual calculation. In a real-world scenario, this would be native C++ code via JNI for performance. Here, we use a Kotlin Thread performing hashing operations. Verus Coin is often considered one of the
MinerThread.kt
package com.example.cpuminerimport android.util.Log import java.security.MessageDigest
class MinerThread : Thread() @Volatile private var isRunning = false private var hashCount: Long = 0 private var lastLogTime: Long = System.currentTimeMillis()
// Callback to report stats var onStatsUpdate: ((hashRate: Double) -> Unit)? = null override fun run() isRunning = true val digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256") var data = "initial_block_data".toByteArray() Log.d("MinerThread", "Mining started...") while (isRunning) try // 1. Perform a hash operation // In a real miner, this would check if hash meets difficulty target val hash = digest.digest(data) // 2. Update data for next iteration (simulate nonce increment) // Just XORing the first byte to change data slightly data[0] = (data[0] + 1).toByte() hashCount++ // 3. Calculate Hashrate every second val now = System.currentTimeMillis() if (now - lastLogTime >= 1000) val hashRate = hashCount.toDouble() / ((now - lastLogTime) / 1000.0) // Post update to main thread if needed, or handle via Handler onStatsUpdate?.invoke(hashRate) // Reset counters hashCount = 0 lastLogTime = now // Optional: Sleep briefly to prevent total UI lockup on low-end devices // Thread.sleep(1) catch (e: Exception) e.printStackTrace() Log.d("MinerThread", "Mining stopped.") fun stopMining() isRunning = false