A software engineer has just figured out how to mine the GPU on the Apple M1 chip to mine the ethereum cryptocurrency, but whether it's worth it is an open question. Yifan Gu, a software engineer at Zensors, wrote on his blog: “
I've had my MacBook Air M1 for a while and recently started mining Ethereum". I can't help but wonder:
What does Ethereum mining performance look like on a Mac M1?
They explain the process they went through to get the Ethminer software used to extract Ether to work on an Apple M1 chip, as work is needed to port the software to Apple's silicon.
The challenge starts by getting Ethminer to recognize the M1 chip GPU, and it only gets more complicated from there. You'll need some C/C++ coding skills if you want to go through the Gu process, but it's not that complicated if you know what you're doing. In the end, Gu made it work, but as TechPowerUp points out, it's not exactly the most efficient mining GPU on the market.
MacBooks won't be the next RTX cards, don't worry
Cryptomining recently took off thanks to the increase in the price of ethereum, which helped exacerbate supply problems around
Nvidia's RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 3090 graphics cards, so much so that Nvidia itself is taking steps to combat it. making them less effective in mining cryptocurrency. It's understandable that some might be concerned about using an M1 chip to mine trendy cryptocurrencies, but in this case, the M1's relatively underpowered GPU makes it a poor candidate for cryptominers.
With a hash rate of 2 MH/s, the earning of M1 per day is only €0.14. At this rate, it would take just under 20 years to break even at current prices.