It hasn't been worth mining bitcoin using standard consumer
computer hardware for years because of the kind of
processing power involved; the overwhelming majority of
ordinary members of public pools will have bought hardware from companies like KnCMiner.
The paper's lead author — Marcus Yip, who completed his PhD at MIT last fall — and his colleagues Rui Jin and Nathan Ickes, both in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science, will also exhibit a prototype charger that plugs into an
ordinary cell phone and can recharge the signal -
processing chip in roughly two minutes.