LA-based startup Coinmine has unveiled the launch of Coinmine One, a sleek, plug-in device that aims to simplify the complex cryptocurrency mining process. Similar in size and look to an Xbox, the Coinmine One is meant to allow anyone to mine cryptocurrencies easily. It began selling Wednesday for US$799. “Crypto is not just about buying and selling magical internet coins,” remarked Farb Nivi, co-founder and CEO of Coinmine. “It’s about people combining computation to decentralize the world’s money and information from the hands of a few and into the hands of the many. We made this easy enough for anyone to do.” Coinmine One aims to be a more convenient, user-friendly alternative to the typical crypto hardware and software used to mine cryptocurrencies. It replaces the several do-it-yourself hardware and wallet solutions, which are hard and time-consuming to set up and update, with a single plug-in device and mobile wallet powered by a proprietary operating system. White Coinmine One Customers just plug in Coinmine One, which the enterprise claims uses less energy than a PlayStation, tap on the mobile app and select which coin to power. From there, the mobile app controls and keeps track of the miner’s activity. Customers can see how much crypto they have earned, change to another crypto or add additional Coinmine devices to their account from the dashboard. Coinmine App Coinmine’s operating system, MineOS, makes it possible to run different types of networks on one device. Currently, it supports Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Monero and Zcash mining. More cryptocurrencies will be incorporated in the future, including Bitcoin Lightning, Grin, Dfinity and Filecoin, the startup noted. Released just this year, Coinmine has already gathered a total of US$2 million from Coinbase Ventures, Social Leverage, Arrington Capital, Wonder VC and angel investors like Coinbase’s chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan and Tinder’s former chief product officer Brian Norgard, who has also signed on as an active advisor. “There are a lot of parallels I draw from Coinmine and Tinder,” Norgard told TechCrunch. “Online dating was very complicated six years ago. It was an arduous process and so is mining. You have to be pretty sophisticated, but this takes it down to the studs. A normal consumer with no technical knowledge can get into the crypto game.” Norgard explained in a separate statement: “When Farb initially came to me with the basis for Coinmine, I knew it was a radically novel solution to a messy problem – it was as they say, a perfect match. The limiting factor to scale in crypto continues to be complexity for the end user. Farb and the entire Coinmine team are one of the initial companies attacking this problem head-on through a blend of hardware and software.”