Siraj Rafal, a Tesla YouTuber and owner who lives in San Francisco, mines Ethereum by connecting computer processor units directly to his car battery.
Siraj Rafal tried almost every way to mine cryptocurrency from his Tesla Model 3 car, to that end he ran a free bitcoin mining program on his Apple Mac mini M1. Home Electric He plugs the inverter into the 12-volt power socket in his car.
Rafale also connected computer graphics processing units (GPUs) to his car, powering the units from the car’s internal battery.
Despite the risk of voiding his car’s warranty, Rafal says it will be worth it.
When the price of Ethereum peaked in 2021, Raval said he was making up to $800 a month.
Alejandro de la Torre, also a bitcoin miner, said mining from Tesla is just like connecting to any other energy source, the main component of the mining process being electricity: “If it’s cheaper to do it with an electric car, then so be it.”
How to mine cryptocurrency using Tesla?
In 2018, Chris Alessi decided to tamper with his Tesla. Alesi – also known as “K-Man” on his YouTube channel, was the first electric car dealer in Wisconsin.
Alessi told CNBC of his passion, “I love electricity. I love going off, building things. Give me an electric motor, and I’ll give you a finished product.”
Similar to the Rafale, Alessi tried two different ways to turn his Tesla Model S into a cryptocurrency miner.
Cryptocurrency mining is an energy-intensive process in which machines around the world contribute their computing power to the entire network, in order to create new coins and validate transactions for existing tokens.
Miners run specialized software that solves complex mathematical equations, and to participate in the process all you need is a powerful computer and a power source.
Alessi tried to mine Bitcoin by connecting the miner Batman Antminer S9 (Bitmain Antminer-S9) – a type of mining hardware specifically used to mint the world’s most famous cryptocurrency – directly into his car battery, with the help of a power adapter. The inverter adjusts the voltage of the Tesla electric battery to a level consistent with its Antminer.
Alesi also successfully used the vehicle’s firmware to mine other cryptocurrencies.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” he said of the process. Alessi used the built-in computer and monitor in the car to navigate to a web page he had created specifically for mining the monero coin.
“I can run the mining program inside the browser,” Alessi said.
Of all the technologies that Rafale tried, he said, the most profitable included a combination of hacking the Tesla’s internal computer, as well as connecting GPUs directly to the car’s electric motor.
“It’s a computer with wheels…it’s very easy to hack into this computer car,” Raval added, describing the process as exploiting the car’s internal firmware to allow additional power usage.
Professional crypto miners tell CNBC that in theory, exploits of various mining energy sources are possible.
White Gibbs, CEO and founder of Compass, a bitcoin mining service provider, explained: “The mechanics are all there, you have the power supply, you have the space, you have the ability to add cooling. There is definitely enough battery power to run the mining software.”