Imagine mining with cellphones, even super slow, many many people would surely buy into crypto.
Its all about taking part and excitement
You are a few years behind the times but then again to Newb's, everything old is New to them... Several Major Players already floated that idea / ICO and took in millions from Investards. ref
Smartphone Mining Chips. and
full article from PC World here.
For a myriad of obvious reasons like processing power (minuscule to what is needed) to battery life and more serious gotcha's it failed of course. However the core concept behind the software was reborn as the 'voluntary' Monero mining that several sites such as PirateBay have you run in the background liu of showing ads while you are using their sites.