Google may ban ads for cryptos, but that isn��t stopping Sergey Brin, one of its founders, from making a few bucks mining Ethereum ETHUSD, -2.04% the second-biggest digital currency behind bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.64% �.
��A year or two ago my son insisted that we needed to get a gaming PC,�� Brin told a gathering at a blockchain conference in Morocco over the weekend. ��I told him if we get a gaming PC we have to mine cryptocurrency. So we got an Ethereum miner on there and we��ve been making a few pennies and dollars since.��
With a net worth of about $54 billion, the Alphabet GOOG, +0.99% �president clearly isn��t doing it for the money. Rather, think of it more as research, considering Brin admits he doesn��t know ��a whole lot about cryptocurrency.��
He also acknowledged that Google missed an opportunity to be an early adopter in ��mind-boggling�� blockchain technology. ��We probably already failed to be on the bleeding edge, I��ll be honest,�� he said, adding that perhaps Google X, the company��s research division could get involved.
��I see the future as taking these kind of research-y kind of out there ideas and making them real �� and Google X is kind of like that,�� Brin said.
Click here to see him speak at the conference.
The chief executives of two large graphics-chip manufacturers, Nvidia NVDA, +0.67% �and Advanced Micro Devices AMD, +1.41% have insisted during a boom in sales attributed by some analysts to crypto-mining that gamers are buying cards and using them for mining on the side.
��A lot of gamers, when they aren��t playing games, they��re doing a little mining,�� Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told MarketWatch in a May interview after reporting nearly $300 million in crypto-related revenue. ��The reason why they bought it is for gaming, but while they��re not gaming �� while they��re at school, at work, in bed �� they��ll turn it on and do a little mining.��
While some have scoffed at that claim, Brin��s description is a high-profile example of that trend.
Ethereum topped the $500 mark over the weekend for the first time since June 21, according to Coin Market Cap, but has since drifted down to $484.
Shawn Langlois Shawn Langlois is an editor and writer for MarketWatch in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @slangwise.
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