Razer launched ‘crypto scam’ for gamers

Perhaps Razer didn’t do this with bad intentions, but its newly launched SoftMiner is one of the biggest scams on the market. It allows gamers to mine cryptocurrency and they are being rewarded in Razer’s own virtual currency called Razer Silver. This currency has an expiry date and is being destroyed 12 months after it was created. This was announced on Thursday.

The desktop app called Razer SoftMiner will use idle graphics cards (GPU) to mine cryptocurrencies. Instead of being paid in crypto, gamers will be rewarded Razer’s very own loyalty coin Razer Silver. This currency has just been re-branded, after it was first introduced last year. Razer Silver can be spend on products, discounts and vouchers.

However, according to calculations one Razer Silver is worth $0.00089. So it would take 560 days of 24/7 mining to earn enough for a $250 Razer keyboard. However, credits earned by mining expire after 12 months. Therefore it’s technically impossible to ever earn enough credits for a keyboard. A laptop stand, gaming mouse, game keys and clothing is within the realm of possibilities of 24/7 mining and getting Razer Silver in return.

Obviously consumers aren’t idiots, and they noticed the scam fairy early. Comments on the Twitter post by Razer are mentioning that even electricity costs are higher than the rewards the company is giving, which currently is the case for many crypto miners.

To make things worse, people feel like the Razer SoftMiner is a total scam, because apparently Razer is accumulating actual cryptocurrencies without investing anything in any hardware. As a win-win situation, because of the heavy workload imposed by mining, GPUs will break faster. Which means Razer will sell more hardware.

Originally published at NEDEROB.