<p>Theres something about Bitcoin and blockchain that just seems to attract weird and wacky tinkerers.</p>
<p>While computationally powerful ASIC miners dominate <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/texas-ai-power-demand-ercot-load-surge" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">proof-of-work</a> crypto mining today, that hasnt stopped innovative crypto miners from using everything from Game Boys to the Apollo moon mission guidance computer to help secure the network.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Magazine has gathered some of the strangest things people have tried to <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-biz-mining-weakness-tests-bitcoin-s-current-market-cycle" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">mine cryptocurrency</a> with, and youll be astounded at the ingenuity.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="press-x-to-mine-bitcoin">Press X to mine Bitcoin</h2>
<p>If your mom has ever given you a hard time about your gaming habits, tell her youre simply researching consumer-grade crypto mining hardware.</p>
<p>PlayStation consoles were used to mine cryptocurrency for years.</p>
<p>In 2021, Ukraines Security Service <a href="https://ssu.gov.ua/en/novyny/sbu-vykryla-naibilshu-kryptofermu-v-ukraini-maizhe-5-tys-kompiuteriv-mainyly-hroshi-na-vinnytsiaoblenerho" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">reported</a> that it had busted a cryptocurrency mining operation that allegedly stole up to $260,000 worth of electricity each month.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Five thousand devices were seized by authorities, with 3,800 of them being what look like PlayStation 4 consoles, along with 500 graphics cards, 50 CPUs, notebooks, phones, and flash drives.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized"><img width="1024" height="682" src="https://s3.magazine.cointelegraph.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/6cf3d8104a192be2bb2380c6e3ce466c-1024x682.jpeg" alt="6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto">
 <figcaption><em>Thousands of what appear to be PlayStation 4s were seized during the raid. (</em><a href="https://ssu.gov.ua/en/novyny/sbu-vykryla-naibilshu-kryptofermu-v-ukraini-maizhe-5-tys-kompiuteriv-mainyly-hroshi-na-vinnytsiaoblenerho" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><em>Security Service of Ukraine</em></a><em>)</em>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then, a few years later, reports emerged that computer hardware manufacturer ASRock had built a new $15,000 cryptomining rig that utilized 12 AMD BC-250 mining cards, a cut-down version of the chip used in the Sony PlayStation 5.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Each rig reportedly could mine up to 610 MH/s when mining Ethereum, back when it used proof-of-work.</p>
<p>YouTubers caught on to the technique in 2024, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC4bvCJgAUs" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">running</a> their own experiments on the BC-250 processors to mine crypto.&nbsp;</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="mining-bitcoin-with-a-botnet-of-cctv-cameras">Mining Bitcoin with a botnet of CCTV cameras</h2>
<p>Of course, who can <a href="https://x.com/Cointelegraph/status/1971223211686678577" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">forget about smart devices</a>?&nbsp;</p>
<p>In 2017, IBM researchers discovered a variant of the Mirai botnet tuned for mining Bitcoin, which was worth about $1,300 at the time.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Mirai botnet was first identified by security researchers in August 2016 after it was used to infect thousands of smart devices to perform large-scale distributed denial-of-service attacks (basically spamming a server until it crashes).&nbsp;</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized"><img width="800" height="600" src="https://s3.magazine.cointelegraph.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/nick-loggie-fRVPzBYcd5A-unsplash.jpg" alt="6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto">
 <figcaption><em>(</em><a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/white-bullet-security-camera-lot-fRVPzBYcd5A" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><em>Unsplash</em></a><em>)</em>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mirai was the name of the tool that scanned the internet for Internet of Things (IoT) devices configured with factory default credentials, which made them easy enlistees of a global bot army.&nbsp;</p>
<p>A month later, its source code was leaked, and in 2017, threat actors had the nifty idea of customizing the botnet to try and mine Bitcoin, with peak activity around March 2017.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Bitcoin Mirai malware targeted Linux machines running BusyBox, one of the most widely used Linux tools for internet-connected devices. Darktrace <a href="https://www.darktrace.com/blog/mirai-malware-infects-cctv-camera" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">identified</a> one instance of the Mirai malware infecting a DVR camera belonging to a company in Canada.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But researchers from IBMs X-Force questioned its success, as mining Bitcoin at the time already required powerful ASIC miners to even have a chance of winning a block reward.</p>
<p>Given Mirais power to infect thousands of machines at a time, however, there is a possibility that the Bitcoin miners could work together in tandem as one large miner consortium, <a href="https://www.scworld.com/news/hackers-use-mirai-botnet-to-slowly-mine-bitcoins-with-iot-devices" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">said</a> the researchers. So who knows, they might have hit the jackpot.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="mining-on-a-game-boy-because-why-not">Mining on a Game Boy, because why not</h2>
<p>In the same way you can mow your lawn with scissors, you can technically mine Bitcoin on an old-school 90s Nintendo Game Boy though were not really sure why anyone would want to.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In 2021, YouTuber stacksmashing repurposed an old Nintendo Game Boy using a Raspberry Pi Pico, a link cable and some custom software.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The mining process is performed on the Game Boy (originally launched in Japan in April 1989) with a bit of coding wizardry, while communication with the Bitcoin network is handled by a computer via a voltage-modified link cable.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><img width="800" height="449" src="https://s3.magazine.cointelegraph.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/gameboy-requirements.jpg" alt="6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto">
 <figcaption><em>Components needed to mine Bitcoin on a Game Boy (</em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ckjr9x214c" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><em>YouTube</em></a><em>)</em><br>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The process involves getting the Game Boy to run a custom ROM (read-only memory image), using the same firmware that Trezors hardware wallet uses for its SHA-256 implementation.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Game Boy Bitcoin miner code is relatively simple: it consists of an endless loop that first receives the block data and target value from the computer, then starts mining, checks the hash against the target value, and either sends the successful nonce back to the computer or starts the process again.</p>
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<p>According to stacksmashing, you can actually hear it working as the Game Boy gives off a particular whine as it strains with the computations necessary to win a Bitcoin block.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The hashrate is pretty impressive, roughly 0.8 hashes per second. If you compare that to modern ASIC miners, which come in at around 100 terahashes per second, you can see that we are almost as fast, only off by a factor of 125 trillion, he said, jokingly.&nbsp;</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img width="800" height="413" src="https://s3.magazine.cointelegraph.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Gameboy.jpg" alt="6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto">
 <figcaption><em>(</em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ckjr9x214c" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><em>YouTube</em></a><em>)</em>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stacksmashing estimates it would take a couple of quadrillion years to win a Bitcoin block at that rate.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Obviously, mining Bitcoin on a Game Boy is anything but profitable, but I learned a lot of things while building this and definitely had a ton of fun, he said.&nbsp;</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized"><img width="894" height="1024" src="https://s3.magazine.cointelegraph.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/agc-connected-894x1024.jpg" alt="6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto">
 <figcaption><em>Apollo Guidance Computer with interfaces that plugged into the front of the computer (<a href="https://www.righto.com/2019/07/bitcoin-mining-on-apollo-guidance.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ken Shirriff</a>)</em>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="mining-bitcoin-on-the-computer-that-went-to-the-moon">Mining Bitcoin on the computer that went to the Moon</h2>
<p>Whats slower than a Game Boy? According to vintage computer restorer Ken Shirriff, its the computer that got Apollo mission astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, to the moon.</p>
<p>The Apollo Guidance Computer was developed in the 1960s. It was built at a time when most computers were the size of an entire room.</p>
<p>Which was why the Apollo Guidance Computer was a marvel at the time. It could be used for guidance, navigation and control of the spacecraft while being small enough to fly to space.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In 2019, Shirriff <a href="https://www.righto.com/2019/07/bitcoin-mining-on-apollo-guidance.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">attempted</a> to mine Bitcoin on it.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Trying to mine Bitcoin on this 1960s computer seemed both pointless and anachronistic, so I had to give it a shot, he wrote in a lengthy write-up.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Shirriff said it was a massive challenge to get the Apollo Guidance Computer to play ball. The hardware was essentially incompatible, and the memory was laughably low.</p>
<p>Even loading the program necessary to mine Bitcoin was tricky, according to Shirriff. In the 1960s, code for the AGC was written on punch cards and assembled onto tape using a software system called YUL, and software was physically woven into bundles of wires threaded through magnetic ferrite cores (called Core Rope Memory).</p>
<p>Since that kind of technology takes weeks to manufacture, Shirriff had to use a core rope simulator instead to load and run the Bitcoin program, relying on self-written software and a custom board to load the code into the AGC.&nbsp;</p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube">
 <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"><iframe title="Bitcoin mining on the Apollo Guidance Computer" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XiBuzzOt43g?start=4&amp;feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://cointelegraph.com" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-forms"></iframe>
 </div>
</figure>
<p>In the end, Shirriff said he achieved approximately 10.3 seconds per hash, or 0.10 hashes per second.</p>
<p>To put it into perspective, Shirriff said its so slow that it would take a million times the age of the universe to successfully mine a Bitcoin block.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But even that’s not the slowest way to do it.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="mine-bitcoin-with-a-pen-and-paper">Mine Bitcoin with a pen and paper</h2>
<p>Shirriff again proves that anything is possible with enough time. Years before his Apollo computer experiment, Shirriff demonstrated that you can technically mine Bitcoin with a pen and paper, as long as you have considerable patience (and scientists have solved immortality).</p>
<p>I decided to see how practical it would be to mine Bitcoin with pencil and paper. It turns out that the SHA-256 algorithm used for mining is pretty simple and can, in fact, be done by hand, he <a href="https://www.righto.com/2014/09/mining-bitcoin-with-pencil-and-paper.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">wrote</a> in a blog.&nbsp;</p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube">
 <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"><iframe title="Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y3dqhixzGVo?start=3&amp;feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://cointelegraph.com" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-forms"></iframe>
 </div>
</figure>
<p>In a YouTube video, Shirriff completed one pretty painful-looking round of SHA-256 in 16 minutes and 45 seconds.</p>
<p>With 128 required for a full Bitcoin block, that means it would take him roughly 1.5 days to hash it. This equates to a blistering 0.67 hashes per day.</p>
<p>For comparison, Bitmains Antminer S21 Pro has a hashrate of 234 terahashes per second, which is about 30 quintillion times faster than doing it by hand.&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
 <p>Not surprisingly, the process is extremely slow compared to hardware mining and is entirely impractical.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At least we now have a Bitcoin mining solution in case the world ever <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/big-questions-will-bitcoin-survive-10-year-power-outage/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">loses power.&nbsp;</a></p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="microsoft-considered-mining-crypto-with-your-brain">Microsoft considered mining crypto with your brain</h2>
<p>In 2019, Microsoft <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US291464337&amp;_fid=WO2020060606" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">filed</a> a patent in the US that describes using body activity, such as brain waves and facial movements, as a form of proof-of-work in a cryptocurrency system.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The basic idea of the application, titled Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data, is that a users bodily functions will serve as their proof-of-humanity that allows them to be paid for performing a task, like watching ads, using a search engine, or solving CAPTCHA puzzles.&nbsp;</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized"><a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US291464337&amp;_fid=WO2020060606" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><img width="641" height="478" src="https://s3.magazine.cointelegraph.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Microsoft-mine-brain.png" alt="6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto"></a>
 <figcaption><em>Flow chart illustrating how the cryptocurrency mining system operates. (Microsoft)</em>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This could include anything from brain waves, body temperature and heart rate, to eye or facial movements basically anything that humans do unconsciously that would be hard for a machine to spoof.&nbsp;</p>
<p>This data becomes their proof-of-work (or proof-of-human-effort). If the body-activity data meets the conditions, the system treats it as a valid mining result and rewards cryptocurrency to the user.&nbsp;</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized"><img width="600" height="573" src="https://s3.magazine.cointelegraph.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/brain2.jpg" alt="6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto">
 <figcaption><em>(</em><a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/blue-and-green-peacock-feather-58Z17lnVS4U" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><em>Unsplash</em></a><em>)</em><br>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Inventors behind the application, Dustin Abramson, Derrick Fu, and Joseph Johnson Jr. said the system is an alternative to the computationally intensive Bitcoin mining model, where miners compete to solve challenging puzzles using machines.</p>
<p>Instead of massive computation work required by some conventional cryptocurrency systems, data generated based on the body activity of the user can be a proof-of-work, and therefore, a user can solve the computationally difficult problem unconsciously, the inventors said.&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, the most recent records indicate that the patent application was abandoned as of 2021.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Abramson and Johnson are also the same inventors behind a patent that describes turning deceased loved ones into conversational AI chatbots (Black Mirror, anyone?), which was granted in 2021.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Luckily, it doesnt <a href="https://x.com/_TimOBrien/status/1352645952310439936?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">look</a> like anything has come of this yet.&nbsp;</p>
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6 weirdest devices people have used to mine Bitcoin and crypto

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