Explore, Research and Discover - Gridcoin
Introduction
Welcome to the Gridcoin community! We are a fun-loving, scientific and enthusiastic bunch that enjoy being volunteer scientists, crunching scientific work for fun, or for Gridcoin.
The following post is for anyone new or existing to find their way about the currency and the community, learning about who we are, what we do, what gives Gridcoin its value and how you can become volunteer scientists like the rest of us!
"Many have said that it is part of being human to have curiosity about the world. The problem of creation has inspired humanity for centuries."
So I say why not be apart of that curiosity... Enter, Gridcoin...
What is Gridcoin?
Gridcoin is a Proof Of Stake (POS) cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer scientists who contribute their computational power to scientific projects through the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Networked Computing (BOINC) network.
As of writing this, Gridcoin currently earns any holder a 1.5% interest to their reserve (which is subject to change) and rewards those who crunch BOINC more on top of this through Distributed Proof Of Research (DPOR).
Gridcoin's aim is to incentivise the computing of scientifically difficult problems in order to answer our deepest questions about the universe by accelerating the amount of work being done to solve them.
You can find additional information through the following links:
Who are we?
We are scientists, organisations, enthusiasts, researchers, scholars, investors and just regular people. No currency is complete without a community, and what a brilliant opportunity to be centered around science!
The Gridcoin and BOINC community is friendly and diverse, and we all have the common goal to accelerate science into the future by computing some of the hardest problems known to man.
Whether you want to cure cancer, find the next prime number or simulate the universe, this is the right place for you!
Scientists
Scientists are at the core of BOINC and Gridcoin, they are the people with questions and ideas who need people like us to help answer them.
From the physicists at CERN and the LHC trying to find the elusive graviton to biologists at various institutes who need to simulate molecular docking, we have scientists everywhere who need large amounts of computational power but do not have the budget to purchase large supercomputers, so they turn to us volunteers for help.
Organisations
Sometimes companies also need computing power. On the BOINC network there are several corporate entities who seek computational resources for the sake of science and helping the wider community.
One big example is IBM and their World Community Grid which aims to tackle large, real-world problems such as finding cures to HIV/AIDS and various tropical diseases that still plague developing countries.
Regular People
This scientific venture doesn't just run itself, it needs the workforce of millions of idle computers owned by just regular people like you from around the world.
Both the Gridcoin and BOINC networks are built from volunteers, regular people who want to sacrifice their time and labour for the sake of science.
It is also common for institutions to publish findings with the names of individuals who participated in the direct discovery of certain phenomena, such as E@H finding binary radio pulsars - And you could be one of them!
How does Science get done?
The BOINC Network
BOINC has existed long before Gridcoin and is a network that connects computers around the globe so that they can all work on scientific problems. BOINC is not a company nor institution, rather it is the software and network which was developed originally by the University of California, Berkeley.
The BOINC network aims to create one huge distributed supercomputer in order to unify volunteers and allow them to work collaboratively to answer the big questions of the universe.
BOINC is scalable and harbors a plethora of scientific organisations who need their questions answered (these are called projects) such as listening for gravitational waves or pulsars, folding proteins, smashing subatomic particles, predicting meteorological conditions, finding prime numbers, and the list goes on and on...
You and Your Computer
Computers are key to solving the problems scientists are faced with and you are pivotal to helping them arrive at their conclusion.
If you are reading this, you have a computer, whether it be as beefy as the latest gaming PC or as small as the little super computers we know as mobile phones, you can help out and become a volunteer scientist! The currently supported platforms are the majority of desktop computers, embedded ARM devices such as a Raspberry PI and Android mobile phones.
The process of working on scientific work is simple. After you have installed the BOINC manager and joined a project, your computer connects to the organisation's servers to retrieve work (1). Your computer then uses it's power to run the processes necessary to complete this work (2) and then it is sent back to the organisation for validation (3).
You are then rewarded with BOINC credits to represent your contributions and if you are apart of the Gridcoin team or pool, you will be rewarded monetarily with Gridcoins.
Gridcoin Saves the Day!
Better than Plain ol' Hashing
Hashing is arguably a wasteful and now environmentally and economically destructive form of computation. We've seen with the big cryptos (such as Bitcoin and Ethereum) that we are using the world's energy for the economic gain of individuals and the security of a payment network without much consideration to the development to the human race or the environment we live in.
You can see just how much energy usage Bitcoin is using, and the hashing rate is far from lowering any time soon:
Typical Proof Of Work (POW) currencies are much like the useless machine shown below, doing menial labour for no real reason other than our own delight. I think it's time we actually consider what we are doing with all this wasted computing power.
Gridcoin on the other hand implements an eco-friendly POS mechanism with makes the currency low-impact while advocating and incentivising the usage of electricity for the good of the human race rather than personal gain. This means that you can be crunching some science while also earning Gridcoin, it's a win-win situation!
A Coin Built by the People, for the People
No matter our differences, diversity or thoughts we are all human, and we all have one thing in common... Curiosity...
Whether it be understanding the fundamentality of space-time or wondering how biological systems evolve, Gridcoin will pave the way for humanity in understanding the most pivotal infrastructures of our reality, it is truly a coin for all of us.
Gridcoin finds it's grass roots in a team of small, home-grown developers who dedicate their spare time to building this infrastructure which encourages people from around the world to come participate in science.
Gridcoin is great at giving back to the community, it's fixed interest means that it is easy for people to enter and get their hands on Gridcoin as it is not as sparse as the more expensive currencies.
In addition to this, the Gridcoin network allows for voting to take place, allowing the users to choose what changes are made to the coin and what projects are to be whitelisted, making the whole system democratic and decentralising it more than a typical currency.
What can I use my GRC for?
Sell it
The most simplest thing to do with your Gridcoin is to exchange it for cash, after all it is your reward for computing for science.
The following are supported exchanges for GRC:
However you should definitely take a look at some other options below.
Invest it
By holding Gridcoin, you are entitled to 1.5% annual interest on your reserve through POS.
By crunching for science, you are able to maximise these rewards depending on how much computing power you contribute.
In addition, GRC just hit its low point for price in the long-term so it is a brilliant time to buy-in, especially now since we are seeing a bullish market:
So what are you waiting for!?
Spend it
Gridcoin is lucky to have a thriving community, and as a result, trades are active, so you can surely find someone to trade goods with your GRC.
The Gridcoin community actually has a subreddit entirely for this purpose, so let me introduce to you Marketgrid.
Marketgrid is a community-run subreddit that helps people in the Gridcoin community find other people to trade goods for GRC with. Marketgrid also has specially chosen and trusted community members that perform escrows on behalf of users to increase the security of trades.
The great thing is that there are no fees for buying and selling and you can pay with what you make from scientific computing!
You can find Marketgrid on Reddit and on Discord.
Give it
Being such a generous cryptocurrency, there are many ways you can donate your earned coins, especially for faucets for new users or BOINC projects that need a couple bucks for server maintenance.
Here are just a few of the places you can donate:
- Switzerland Faucet
- The Gridcoin Discord Bot (run by myself)
- Primegrid (BOINC project)
- BOINC Stats
- Gridcoin Stats
...And the list goes on
Join Us!
Getting started:
Keep in-touch:
Look at some statistics:
- Gridcoin Stats (Block explorer)
- Gridcoin.network (Block explorer)
- Coinmarketcap
Great work, this is a very good intro to Gridcoin!
Excellent write up! Thanks for sharing. Btw the OpenLedger exchange has been down for sending or withdrawing GRC. Not sure when it will be functioning. What exchanges do you guys recommend for trading Gridcoins?
Thanks!
Ian
If you want an exchange that doesn't require ID, flyp.me is the only other one really. Else the ones I have listed are the most trusted, secure and active.
Thanks I'll check it out!
Awesome!
Thanks for the upvote! Appreciate the support! ;)