Hardware maker FutureBit has tested an unconventional approach to Bitcoin mining: simulating a fruit fly's brain to perform mining calculations in a web browser.
The HashFly demonstration simulates activity across 2,914 neural pathways based on MaleCNS v1.0, a digital map of an adult male fruit fly's brain and central nerve cord. FutureBit said it is working to simulate all neurons in the dataset with SHA-256 hashing and plans to publish its findings.
According to FutureBit's calculations, if such a system could be scaled to real organic neurons, it would theoretically achieve approximately one watt per terahash—roughly 10 times the efficiency of leading 3-nanometer ASIC miners. The estimate applies a fruit fly's total power consumption to a hypothetical system where every neuron mines Bitcoin continuously.
However, the current experiment runs on conventional computer hardware and lacks the hash rate and difficulty required to compete with actual Bitcoin miners. HashFly operates at a fraction of Bitcoin's current mining difficulty, while FutureBit's five-inch Apollo III ASIC miner reaches 18 terahashes per second.
A separate project called FlyMiner uses a digital map of 139,255 fruit fly neurons and 16.8 million connections to control a standard Bitcoin mining program. When simulated signals from the fly's movement-control neurons reach a set threshold, the program tests possible solutions to mining problems at speeds of up to 700,000 attempts per second.
These fruit fly projects follow other unconventional Bitcoin mining experiments, including a 1989 Nintendo Game Boy converted into a miner in March 2021, a Brooklyn bathhouse that routed mining equipment heat into its pools in June 2023, and Utah-based Nodal Power, which raised $13 million in August 2023 to expand facilities generating electricity from landfill methane for Bitcoin mining.
