Modder uses Nintendo Game Boy for Bitcoin mining

A YouTube user called stacksmashing has adapted his Nintendo Game Boy to mine Bitcoins. The modder uses, among other things, a Raspberry Pi Pico and a Link cable. This achieves a hashrate of approximately 0.8 hashes per second.

Forget GPUs! Mine Bitcoin With Game Boy + Raspberry Pi Pico | Tom's Hardware

Stacksmashing explains his project in a YouTube video . The mud uses a separate USB cartridge with the necessary ROMs installed. Stack Smashing further used a modified Game Boy link cable to connect the handheld to a bread board to connect. A Raspberry Pi Pico is used as a connector between the Game Boy and a host computer. To make the Link cable and Raspberry Pi work together, stack smashing uses a logic shifter to convert the voltage from 5V to 3.3V.

Stack smashing also explains how it works. The connected computer sends instructions to the handheld, after which the Game Boy starts mining. The results are eventually sent back to the PC. The process uses custom mining software, Raspberry Pi Pico firmware, and Game Boy code, among other things.

The modder reports that the Sharp LR35902 processor in the Game Boy, which runs at a clock speed of 4.19MHz, achieves a hashrate of about 0.8 hashes per second. To illustrate: current ASICs , which are specifically designed for Bitcoin mining, achieve 100 terahashes per second. This makes the Game Boy about 125 trillion times slower than modern mining devices. Stacksmashing did manage to set up its own block with low difficulty, which was successfully solved by the Game Boy.

Although mining on the Game Boy is not profitable, stacksmashing has made the used code , mining software and Raspberry Pi Pico firmware public on GitHub. This allows owners of the classic handheld to recreate the project, provided they have the necessary additional hardware.