what about something (crypto being the only idea I have) that could be leveraged to reward the website owner?

Anubis is not a cryptocurrency miner: https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/user/frequently-asked-questi...

it does not answer if it's a conscious design choice or just a technical limitation of the PoW, or just a "patch welcome" issue.

It's a conscious design choice. Doing that gets you considered a botnet/malware. I don't want Anubis to be considered a botnet/malware.

I already consider Anubis to be malware and I'm just some dude who likes to play with computers.

If it mined crypto instead of just burn clock cycles, then that could not in any way serve to lower its ranking in my book. It's already at minimum.

That's great. I love that for you. Please leave me alone.

OK, I don't think it would be the case if it was one of many algorithms offered by Anubis, especially if it's enabled by the webmaster.

That being said I don't know any crypto that would technically fit as a lightweight PoW.

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