Monero's proof of work (RandomX) is very asic-resistant and although it generates a very small amount of earnings, if you exploit a vulnerability like this with thousands or tens of thousands of nodes, it can add up (8 modern cores 24/7 on Monero would be in the 10-20c/day per node range). OPs Vps probably generated about $1 for those script kiddies.

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pixl97 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Hit 1000 servers and it starts adding up. Especially if you live somewhere with a low cost of living.

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asdff 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

So $40 a year? Does that imply all monero is mined like this because it's clearly not cost effective at all to mine legitimately?

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beeflet 4 days ago | parent [-]

I think so, but it is hard to say. Could be a lot of people with extra power (or stolen power), but their own equipment. I mine myself with waste solar power

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Sohcahtoa82 4 days ago | parent [-]

Another option:

Deliberate heat generation.

If it's cold and you're going to be running a heater anyways, then if your heat is resistive, then running a cryptominer is just as efficient and returns a couple dollars back to you. It effectively becomes "free" relative to running the heater.

If you use a heat pump, or you rely on burning something (natural gas, wood, whatever) to generate heat, then the math changes.

	▲	tgtweak 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah the calculus on that becomes tricky when you have heat pumps since the coefficient of performance is >1 vs resistive heating (often 3-4 depending on the temperature). I used a rack of GPUs to heat my house for a few years back when gpu mining was decently profitable, and my electricity bill was 3-4x more than with the heat pump - so you have to keep a close eye on the math when you're running at/under profitability.