Luxury gaming PC and peripheral maker Razer Inc. is joining with Gamma Innovations Inc. to connect gamers to blockchain technology by allowing them to “mine” and earn gift tokens redeemable for computer gear.

The software, SoftMiner, is part of a joint announcement released on Wednesday by the two companies which will be integrated directly into Razer’s software suite.

Once installed, the software runs silently in the background and uses the graphics card on the user’s computer to solve complex mathematical problems in a process called “mining” that’s used to secure distributed blockchain ledger technology.

This task is extremely computation-intensive and requires a great deal of horsepower. In the cryptocurrency industry, which relies heavily on blockchain technology for tokens such as bitcoin and Ethereum, clusters of computers using multiple video cards are used to mine. The activity of mining acts to make blockchain ledgers tamperproof by cryptographically connecting each new block of transactions to the one previously added.

Because mining would interfere with gaming – itself an intensive activity for a computer – the SoftMiner program stops running the moment it detects the mouse move.

“Razer’s software and services are integral parts of our gamer-centric ecosystem and complete our gaming lifestyle promise to our fans,” said Razer co-founder and Chief Executive Min-Liang Tan. The company serves more than 50 million registered users, who now can download the mining software.

Although blockchain mining can result in cryptocurrency, neither users nor Razer receive any. Instead, the SoftMiner software’s work goes entirely to Gamma’s services. To encourage gamers to run the software, Razer rewards players with Razer Silver, a company token that can be redeemed for gear at the Razer Store.

“More and more of our original vision is being realized as of the worlds of blockchain and gaming are coming together in a natural way,” Gabriel Schillinger, chief executive of Gamma, said in a statement. “SoftMiner is the best way for Razer community members to contribute their compute when not in use and get awesome rewards in return.”

Gamma’s SoftMiner software will currently be used for securing blockchains, but the company plans to expand its services to include scientific computing and distributed rendering. An example of a scientific computing project that uses distributed processing includes the famous SETI@Home project, where computer users volunteer processor cycles to help the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at the University of California at Berekley by examining radio telescope data for patterns.

Although gamers might be happy with allowing their computers to help get them peripherals and gear while they’re not gaming, Razer has already received some criticism for teaming up with a cryptocurrency mining software company.

User Scott Chicken on Twitter commented, “Just to confirm running this at full power, every single day all day it takes 560 days to earn a Razer keyboard, valued at £199 ($250) as of their website. That being said that means you earn at most £0.35 ($0.44) per day mining at full power.”

Unfortunately, Chicken added, this would also be impossible because Silver earned from mining expires after 12 months, or 360 days, far short of the 560-day estimate.

Users of the mining software would also be putting their gaming rigs at risk with the extra processing power being used constantly. Although the software does not run at “full power,” it does put extra stress on components that could shorten the lifetime of a computer’s components.

Running the software is also not entirely free for the users: Blockchain mining is electricity-intensive because it requires the chips being used to draw more power to do the computations. This would most certainly add to the user’s electric bill and, depending on how much power costs at home, that could be more expensive than the prizes offered by Razer.

Image: Gamma