MINI Power & Real-World Testing

Low power is not a marketing add-on to MINI. It is one of the project's primary engineering goals.

MINI was designed around small, inexpensive and efficient hardware. That claim needs evidence.

This page publishes real-world results from hardware actually used during MINI development and clearly separates measured results from estimates and future targets.

Current Real-World Results

These results are development measurements, not promises of identical performance on every device. Firmware versions, compiler settings, thermal conditions, Wi-Fi conditions and software changes can affect results.

ESP32: The MINI Baseline

ESP32-class hardware is one of MINI's primary reference platforms.

During current Closed Testnet operation, live ESP32 miners have repeatedly reported approximately:

6.93–6.94 MiniPOW/s

This is not a simulated benchmark. These are devices performing MiniPOW work and submitting shares to the live MINI Closed Testnet.

One historical test fleet accumulated more than 461,000 accepted shares with zero rejected shares across three ESP32 miners during extended testing. That is historical development evidence rather than a guarantee of future network performance.

PC Test: Ryzen 9 6900HX

MINI is designed around low-power participation, but it is not restricted to microcontrollers. CPUs, GPUs and other hardware are welcome.

One development system used for MINI testing is a Beelink SER6 MAX mini PC using an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX.

During MINI CPU miner testing, this machine produced approximately:

258–288 MiniPOW/s

Typical observed operation was approximately:

282–285 MiniPOW/s at roughly 8–10% total CPU utilization

At approximately 282 MiniPOW/s, the machine performs about:

~41× the MiniPOW attempts per second of one ~6.9 MiniPOW/s ESP32

That does not mean it receives 41 times the per-miner reward.

MINI adaptive difficulty assigns faster miners more difficult work. Raw computing speed is therefore separated from the number of independently rewarded miner identities.

Why the CPU Result Matters

Traditional cryptocurrency mining often encourages participants to drive hardware as hard as possible because additional hash rate directly competes for additional reward.

That is not the experience MINI is trying to create.

The development PC miner demonstrated that a normal computer can participate in MiniPOW while using only a portion of the machine's available CPU resources.

MINI's planned official CPU and GPU software is intended to support efficient background participation rather than requiring users to deliberately maximize electricity consumption.

Because MINI software will be open, third-party developers may create more aggressive implementations. MINI therefore does not depend on software throttling for fairness. Adaptive difficulty and miner-identity controls address the economic effects of faster hardware.

Estimated Power — Not Yet Wall-Meter Measurements

We want to be precise about the distinction between computational measurements and electrical measurements.

The MiniPOW/s figures above were observed during actual MINI operation.

We have not yet completed controlled wall-meter power measurements for these systems.

For preliminary engineering comparisons only, we have been working with approximately:

Using a purely illustrative 25-watt assumption for the PC:

282 MiniPOW/s ÷ 25 W ≈ 11.3 MiniPOW/s per watt.

Using the provisional 1-watt assumption for a complete ESP32 miner:

6.9 MiniPOW/s ÷ 1 W ≈ 6.9 MiniPOW/s per watt.

These efficiency figures should not yet be treated as benchmark results because the electrical inputs have not been measured under controlled conditions. They are shown to document the engineering estimates being tested.

What We Will Measure

MINI intends to publish controlled measurements rather than rely indefinitely on estimates.

Planned testing includes:

• Wall power in watts.
• MiniPOW/s.
• MiniPOW/s per watt.
• Energy consumption in Wh/day and kWh/day.
• Projected kWh/year.
• Idle power versus active MINI mining power.
• ESP32 board-to-board efficiency differences.
• CPU efficiency at different utilization levels.
• Raspberry Pi MiniPOW performance and power use.
• GPU MiniPOW performance and power use.
• Temperature and long-duration stability.
• Wi-Fi/network energy overhead.
• Battery runtime.
• Real solar operation.

MINI and Solar Power

Solar operation is an explicit part of MINI's low-power design philosophy.

An ESP32-class miner has a radically different energy requirement from conventional high-power cryptocurrency mining equipment. That opens possibilities for experiments involving small solar panels, batteries, portable power systems and off-grid operation.

However, MINI will not publish an assumed solar panel size as if it were a measured requirement.

Real testing will account for:

• Actual miner wattage.
• 24-hour energy consumption.
• Battery conversion losses.
• Charge-controller losses.
• Nighttime operation.
• Available solar hours.
• Weather and seasonal variation.

Those measurements will be published as they are completed.

Low Power Does Not Mean ESP32 Only

MINI's objective is not to create a network in which every participant must use identical hardware.

A Raspberry Pi, spare computer, laptop, GPU system or future device can participate.

The objective is to create a cryptocurrency where efficient hardware remains useful and where participation does not inherently require an escalating race to consume more electricity.

An ESP32 running at roughly 6.9 MiniPOW/s and a Ryzen 9 system running around 280 MiniPOW/s are dramatically different computers.

MINI is being designed so both can have a legitimate place on the same network.

We Will Publish the Results — Including Bad Ones

LIVENET exists partly to discover where MINI's assumptions are wrong. Power and efficiency are no exception.

If a particular CPU, GPU, ESP32 variant or future implementation performs dramatically differently than expected, that information matters.

If real solar operation requires more power than our estimates predict, that matters too.

The purpose of these measurements is not to prove a marketing claim. It is to determine what MINI actually does in the real world.

As additional hardware is tested, this page will be expanded with measured benchmark tables and real energy data.