Avira, the global antivirus company, has announced that it is mining cryptocurrency. The new venture, called Avira SafeCoin, will allow users to earn rewards for scanning and cleaning their devices. “We are excited to launch our new venture, Avira SafeCoin. This will allow us to reward our users for their participation and help us continue to build the best antivirus product in the world,” said Ondrej Vlcek, CEO of Avira. The new cryptocurrency will be used to purchase products from the company’s online store and support future development of the product. “We want to give back to our users and make sure they have access to our latest features and innovations. This way they can keep us at the top of our game and help us protect them from online threats,” said Vlcek. Avira joins a growing number of companies that are looking into ways to profit from cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it was creating a blockchain-based platform for tracking food supply chains using cryptocurrencies. ..
Also, like Norton 360 is the fee. According to Avira, “The coin mining fee is currently 15% of the crypto allocated to the miner.” You may also have to pay a fee to transfer your currency to another wallet, but that isn’t charged by Avira.
Since cryptomining requires a high level of processing power, it is not suitable for users with an average computer.
Even with compatible hardware, mining cryptocurrencies on your own can be less rewarding. Your best option is to join a mining pool that shares their computer power to improve their chance of mining cryptocurrency. The rewards are then distributed evenly to all members in the pool.
Interestingly, when testing Norton’s miner, Mitchell Clark of The Verge found that “a night of mining on an RTX 3060 Ti netted $0.66 worth of Ethereum and cost $0.66 in off-peak electricity. Norton took all the profit.” There’s no reason it would be any different with Avira’s tool, as it’s using the same fee schedule.
So is it worth it to mine crypto this way? With a 15% fee taken off the top, it’s probably not worth it, as you’re likely to simply break even with the electricity cost.
