Fruit Fly Brain Simulations Tested for Bitcoin Mining

Hardware maker FutureBit has demonstrated a novel approach to Bitcoin mining by simulating fruit‑fly neural activity in a web browser. The experiment, called HashFly, models 2,914 neural pathways from a digital wiring diagram of an adult male fruit fly’s brain and central nerve cord.

How HashFly Works

HashFly runs on standard computer hardware and uses the simulated neural traces to perform simplified SHA‑256 calculations. Users can adjust the mining target, but the hash rate remains far below the difficulty level of the Bitcoin network. For comparison, FutureBit’s Apollo III ASIC miner delivers 18 terahashes per second.

Efficiency Claims

FutureBit noted that if the same neural processes could be implemented with living neurons, the system might achieve roughly 1 watt per terahash—about ten times the efficiency of the most advanced 3 nm silicon ASIC miners. This estimate extrapolates the fruit fly’s total power consumption to a hypothetical miner that runs continuously.

FlyMiner Project

A separate effort, FlyMiner, simulates a larger network of 139,255 fruit‑fly neurons and 16.8 million connections. When simulated signals from movement‑control neurons exceed a threshold, the software triggers a conventional Bitcoin mining engine supplied by solo pool CKPool, reaching up to 700,000 hash attempts per second.

Context of Unconventional Mining Experiments

These fruit‑fly projects join a series of unconventional mining demonstrations, including a 2021 conversion of a 1989 Nintendo Game Boy that produced less than one hash per second, a 2023 Brooklyn bathhouse that redirected mining heat into its pools, and Utah‑based Nodal Power’s 2023 effort to mine Bitcoin using landfill‑methane electricity.