None of the ?mining phones? announced at MWC19 actually mine cryptocurrency

Powered byBlockchain, cryptocurrencies, and insider stories by TNW."Mining" isn't miningThough “foldable phones” and “5G” were undeniably the top buzzwords at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, there was one minor trend that caught my eyes: “mining phones” – or put elsewise, phones that mine cryptocurrency.For the uninitiated, mining refers to the process of solving cryptographic puzzles to verify transactions on the blockchain; in return for solving puzzles, miners get rewarded in cryptocurrency.Due to their difficulty, these puzzles require significant computational resources, which is why miners usually rely on specialized hardware solutions to make the process more efficient. Pretty simple: it can’t.Instead, the mining takes place on a third-party mining pool Wings Mobile intends to build with the revenue its Minephone generates, the company told Hard Fork.“Mining happens on a pool,” a Wings Mobile rep told my colleague Matthew Hughes at MWC. “We don’t use your device to mine, otherwise the battery would be destroyed in two hours.”Here’s the trick: when you buy the Minephone WX, you also subscribe to what Wings Mobile calls an “activation mining plan.” The company currently offers four different tiers – starting from 100 MH/s entry-level and going all the way up to a premium of 1,000 MH/s.Wings Mobile calls this approach to reaching consensus Proof-of-Data; curiously, a Wings Mobile rep we spoke with erroneously referred to it as “Proof-of-Time” before swiftly correcting his mistake.In Proof-of-Data, “the probability of validating a block is determined by the activated contract (100, 300, 600, 1000) and by the time of internet connection with the pool within 24 hours,” according to a Wings Mobile pitch deck.While the activation mining plan for the entry tier is free of charge, you will have to shell out a hefty one-off fee to subscribe to the upper tiers. Pressed about the longterm sustainability of their business plan, Wings Mobile reps told Hard Fork they remain convinced they will be able to keep their promise to customers.That remains to be seen, but as history shows – the odds are stacked against it.Also, Wings Mobile wasn’t the only company boasting mining-enabled phones at MWC. Similarly, cryptocurrency developer Electroneum announced the M1, its new $80 handset aimed at developing countries.“The Electroneum M1 features built-in Cloud Mining which earns it’s owner up to $3 USD worth of ETN (the mobile cryptocurrency) every single month,” the company wrote in a press release.Unlike Wings Mobile though, Electroneum clearly stated the mining doesn’t take place on the phone.