Google stated on their Chromium blog that they will no longer allow any new extensions that mine cryptocurrency and will remove all those already on the platform by June.
Google previously has allowed “cryptocurrency mining in extensions as long as it is the extension’s single purpose, and the user is adequately informed about the mining behavior.” Google has decided to nix the privilege for everyone since they said that “90% of all extensions with mining scripts” that were uploaded to the Chrome Web Stored failed to follow these policies. Such as SafeBrowse that claimed to be a “protect browsing” extension, but actually maliciously mined Monero without informing its 140,000 users.
Google said that they will still allow extensions with blockchain related programs other than mining. Google’s actions follow that of itself banning cryptocurrency related ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, and MailChimp.
Bad actors ruining innovation for everyone else
Google is not alone in implementing a broad reaching ban on cryptocurrencies, however, by punishing everyone, the small amount of policy-abiding developers will lose out on new sources of innovative revenue. In addition, while consumers will be protected from malicious crypto mining, consumers will also suffer from a loss of potential gains. Giving people the ability to employ unused resources in exchange for money, while also requiring very little setup costs, would give many people newfound active wealth that was previously left idle as only potential wealth in unused computing power. This improvement in well-being would have mimicked Google’s initial search invention since that development saved people vast amounts of time, of which was applied elsewhere and generated wealth.
A relevant example is Salon’s foray into using crypto mining in replace of showing ads because of ad blockers. While the Salon.com proposal is to implement this feature on their own site and not via browser extension, it does beg the question of how many entrepreneurs could develop a viable business based around users having a browser mining extension. Consumers could then access premium content for no out-of-pock cost or even receive money back. Luckily for consumers’ sake, there are competing web browsers that offer their own suite of services and if legitimate browser mining extensions are in demand then this service will be provided by developers through other browsers.
Dash has advanced into ASIC-level mining, but still helps consumers
However the debate evolves, personal computer mining is essentially unprofitable at this point for Dash due to ASICs that have dramatically increased the hashrates of DASH. Despite most individuals no longer being able to profitably mine Dash on their idle personal computer power, Dash continues to bring attributes to consumers that have allowed them to increase their wealth and well-being.
Dash has structured itself to be one of the best qualified cryptocurrencies to lower its volatility bringing it closer to mainstream currencies and broader adoption. Looking towards the present shows that consumers are not even waiting for lower volatility since they are using Dash right now for commerce and benefiting from transaction fees and speeds that are lower and faster, respectively, than many banks. Many around the world can not even get access to a bank account due to low capital funds and thus have insecure ways of storing and spending their earnings, but they now have a solution with Dash. Dash has been able to leveraging its unique attributes to continually make the lives of its consumers easier, happier, and more prosperous despite the many commercial cryptocurrency bans that have occurred.
