Some of you might be surprised and some shocked since it is a revenue stream for some webmasters. Some of you might just say what the fuss coinhive is. Well for starters coinhive is famous crypto web browser based mining service provider which worked on a model in which visitor's web browser mined crypto(Monero) for webmasters.
How does this model work-
The cryptocurrency that is mined mostly is Monero, which uses CryptoNight proof-of-work hash algorithm, which comes from the CryptoNote protocol. Due to this algorithm, Monero is mined by CPU/GPU, so the more CPU working for you the more profit for you, and that’s why Monero is favorite for browser-based mining.
A user visits site, Share his/her resources like processing power over web browser causing monero to be mined, as long as a user is on site, this monero mined act as reward/income for the site and allows site to keep running while also providing user access to the site without a membership. causing a win-win for both.
Coinhive and webmasters were doing well, in fact this model is still in early stage, then all of a sudden Coinhive have shocked all with the news that It will be shutting down the business.
Here is what they posted on their Blog.
"Some of you might have anticipated this, some of you will be surprised. The decision has been made. We will discontinue our service on March 8, 2019. It has been a blast working on this project over the past 18 months, but to be completely honest, it isn’t economically viable anymore.
The drop in hash rate (over 50%) after the last Monero hard fork hit us hard. So did the “crash“ of the cryptocurrency market with the value of XMR depreciating over 85% within a year. This and the announced hard fork and algorithm update of the Monero network on March 9 has lead us to the conclusion that we need to discontinue Coinhive.
Thus, mining will not be operable anymore after March 8, 2019. Your dashboards will still be accessible until April 30, 2019 so you will be able to initiate your payouts if your balance is above the minimum payout threshold.
Thank you all for the great time we had together."
Trouble For WebMasters
This is a major setback for Web-browser based mining field, Coinhive is the champion of this field with most reputation and with it going out, it will be leaving a lot of webmasters looking for other revenue streams.
Even now, User providing reward to website owner/webmaster by the way of Browser-based crypto mining is a debatable but noble concept. This simply can eliminate all third parties between user and content provider. These third parties (Ad publisher networks) have their own requirement, TOS to monetize a site which causes some rules being imposed on webmasters, causing certain restrictions on content.
But Browser-based crypto mining helps webmasters overcome these troubles allowing them to operate without restrictions causing wider content range for a visitor. This model helps both and could help the content industry for better.
Alternatives
Now since Coinhive has decided to pack their bags on March 08, 2019 and nothing can be done about it, the question for webmasters will be what is next, what they should do to cover up revenue streams. Fortunately, there are some alternatives too-
Coin IMP
Coin IMP is a new JavaScript miner that can be easily embedded in your website. With Coin IMP, Monero and Webchain are mined by using visitors' CPU resources. CoinIMP charges no fee(0% Fee ).
They claim that their JavaScript miner has more advantages than other JavaScript mining solutions and that web miner isn't blocked by Anti-Viruses or AdBlockers and if gets blocked they will work to unblock it.