Duino-Coin: a cryptocurrency designed to be mined on an Arduino

The premise: a hash function that fits on a microcontroller

Duino-Coin is described in the README as a simple, eco friendly, centralized coin that can be mined with Arduinos, ESP boards, Raspberry Pis, computers and many more, including Wi-Fi routers, smart TVs, smartphones, smartwatches, single board computers and other microcontrollers. The technical specification line gives the algorithm as DUCO-S1 and lists the rewards as supported by a Kolka system, which the README says helps to reward miners fairly. Transactions are instant, the coin supply is infinite with burning, the ticker is DUCO, and decimals go up to 20. The interesting engineering claim is implicit in the hardware list rather than stated as a benchmark: a normal proof of work function is built to be expensive on a CPU and on a GPU, whereas DUCO-S1 is built so that an eight bit microcontroller with a few kilobytes of RAM can carry it out. That is why the project can list an Arduino Uno as a mining target, and it is also why the community framing in the feature table, a fast growing community and beginner and eco friendly, makes sense for a network whose members are hobbyists with spare hardware rather than farms.

Two miners in one repository, one for PCs and one for microcontrollers

The repository layout shows the two halves of the project. `PC_Miner.py` is the miner for a general purpose computer, and `AVR_Miner.py` is the one for the 8 bit AVR boards used in Arduinos, and alongside them sit `Arduino_Code/` and `ESP_Code/`, which hold the firmware for the two most common embedded targets. The split matters because the two halves cannot share code. A PC miner can use the operating system, a network stack and a Python interpreter, while the microcontroller side needs the hash to run in a tight loop on bare metal, and the USB serial link is what carries the work between the two, which is why `pyserial` is in the requirements list. The Python side itself pulls in a small set of libraries: `py-cpuinfo` and `psutil` for machine information, `colorama` for terminal output, `requests` for talking to the network, `pypresence`, and `pyserial` for the board. Two directories in the tree are worth reading as a maintenance signal rather than as features: `Legacy codes/` holds older code kept for reference, and `Unofficial miners/` holds miners written by people outside the project, which is the clearest statement in the repository about who does what.

Getting started: unzip and run, or install the pieces by hand

There are two documented paths and the easy one is unusually short. You download the latest release for your operating system, unzip it, and launch the program you want, and the README states that there are no dependencies required for that path, because the release bundles them. The hard way is the manual installation, and the README gives the Linux commands for it, which install the interpreter, the package manager, git and the imaging libraries the client uses for its graphical elements.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3 python3-pip git python3-pil python3-pil.imagetk -y # Inst

The `python3-pil` and `python3-pil.imagetk` entries are the interesting part of that line, because they are the Pillow imaging stack, which is what the miner uses for anything visual, and `python3-pil.imagetk` is the Tk binding for it. The README also points to the getting started guides on the official website and to the project Wikis for FAQ and troubleshooting, which is where the per board instructions live, since the repository README only shows the beginning of the Linux section. A separate online wallet is offered at wallet.duinocoin.com, and there are Android and iOS apps, so the network is not desktop only.

The board list is the real specification of who this is for

The support table names the hardware, and it is the most informative part of the README because it defines the project's actual audience. The Arduino family is listed with Uno, Nano, Mega, Due and Pro Mini. The ESP8266 line appears as NodeMCU and Wemos boards, and the ESP32 line as ESP-WROOM and ESP32-CAM. Raspberry Pi is covered broadly, from the Pi 1 and 2 through the Zero in both W and WH flavours, the 3 and 4, the Pico, the 400 and the 5, and the Orange Pi entries cover Zero, Zero 2, PC and Plus. The list ends with Teensy 4.1 boards. Two observations follow. The first is that the coverage spans 8 bit AVR, 32 bit ESP and ARM Linux boards, so the same network accepts machines with completely different capabilities, and the mining client on a Pi is the same PC miner that runs on a desktop. The second is that a 20 decimal coin mined on hobby boards is not a competitive way to earn value, which is exactly the point the project makes with its beginner and eco friendly framing. The feature table also lists exchange venues, the DUCO Exchange, JustSwap and SushiSwap, and a whitepaper PDF, and the README header is credited to revoxhere, whose repository holds the canonical project and the translations.

What the releases and the repository say about the state of the project

The tag history is the clearest signal. Release 4.1 was published on 2024-06-13, 4.2 on 2024-08-05, and 4.3 on 2025-02-22, so the most recent packaged build is more than a year old at the time of writing, while the last push to the branch was on 2026-09-28. The source is being worked on faster than the releases are being cut, which is normal for a project whose releases are frozen builds for end users while the repository keeps moving. A user has to choose deliberately between the two, and the README does not describe a rolling build. The repository also carries a full set of translated READMEs, seventeen of them by the count of the language badges, under `Resources/README_TRANSLATIONS/`, which is a lot of care spent on a mining client, and the project runs a Discord server for support. The licence is MIT, and the coin is described as fully original and open source, while also being described as centralized, which is a tension worth holding in mind: the client and the firmware are open, and the network itself is not a decentralised proof of work chain in the usual sense.

Compared with mining a conventional coin on the same hardware

The realistic alternative for someone with a spare desktop is to mine a conventional proof of work coin with a mature mining stack and list on a liquid exchange, where the hash rate of the machine matters and the tooling, benchmarking and pool support already exist. The difference in approach is that Duino-Coin's algorithm was shaped by the constraint rather than fighting it, so a microcontroller that would be useless for mainstream mining contributes real hashes to a network whose difficulty is set for that class of device. The trade is entirely in outcome. Mainstream mining on a spare machine can be worth measuring in money; mining an Arduino is worth a fraction of a cent and, more importantly, the point of the exercise. A second, cheaper alternative is simply to run the PC miner on a computer you already own, which is the same project with a different device and is described in the README as being for computers among the many supported platforms, so the interesting adoption case is the board, not the PC.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt Duino-Coin if you have spare microcontroller boards, enjoy building firmware for them, and want a mining network where the hardware is genuinely the point rather than a side project on a machine that already runs a CPU miner. Do not adopt it as a financial decision, because the README describes the coin as centralized, the supply is infinite, and the listed exchanges are small venues rather than a market you can rely on. Before you start, check the last release, 4.3 from 2025-02-22, against the pushes on the branch, since the source has moved since then, and confirm your board is in the supported list or that you are willing to adapt the Arduino and ESP code yourself. The licence is MIT, the requirements are a short Python list, and the easy install path needs no dependencies at all.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. duino-coin/duino-coin on GitHub
2. License: MIT
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases