Icoplay’s Simon Hill talked to PocketGamer recently about freemium games and how bitcoin may revolutionize the world of in-game purchases. We could be at the cusp of a brave, new world where in-app purchases are a thing of the past and smartphone processing power is harnessed to produce virtual currency.

Icoplay is working on Icominer Unity plugin that developers can build into an app or game. It’ll run in the background and mine bitcoins while a user has an app or game open. According to Hill, the plugin works like this:

A developer installs the software, and every instance of its game running at any time, anywhere mines Bitcoins using the latent power of the device it’s being used on.

The developer then takes its Bitcoins to spend or invest.

At Icoplay, we’ve spent the last few months making this a reality. We’ve ended up with software that can just be dropped into a Unity project (on any platform at all) and make this distributed model of ‘passive grinding’ work.

The Icominer plugin is designed to run silently while users play a game or interact with an app. It’s allegedly so stealthy that customers won’t even know it is chugging along in the background and being used to produce bitcoins. The only evidence of its existence may be diminished battery life as your phone will be working constantly to produce bitcoins, instead of sitting idle during quiet parts of a game or app.

The plugin is in its final beta stages and will be compatible with any apps built with the Unity game engine. It will cost $80 for developers to use.