The UNOFFICIAL [̲̅$̲̅(̲̅ι⛏ο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅] guide to "mining" Gridcoin!! Making the "pool or no pool or INVESTOR" choice

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The links to the next article are near the bottom: Gridcoining Pool Style

Hi, welcome again.
This time we are going to take a look at what method we might want to use to begin "mining" Gridcoins. By mining of course we are talking about minting. This is a Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of Research (PoR)(PoR is a kind of Proof Of Work, PoW) cryptocurrency with an emphasis on Proof of Research.

This is where BOINC comes in. Processing BOINC Project tasks as part of Team Gridcoin is where the real earning begins. By installing the BOINC client and with it the BOINC manager you can participate in ongoing science projects from a wide variety of types and places. Universities from around the world have installed BOINC server software to provide students, staff and scientists with access to Distributed Network Computing provided by people just like you and me.

A variety of of devices can be used such as smart phones, tablets, laptop and desktop computers, server farms, SystemOnChip (SOC) devices like Raspberry Pi's and Odroid. Although CPUs are still used exclusively on some BOINC Projects the GPU is more and more frequently the device of choice.

There are 3 ways to participate in earning Gridcoins (GRC) at present. Methods involving development bounties and developers paid in Gridcoins will not be discussed in this article.

The 3 main choices are:

• Investor mode
• Solo Gridcoining with BOINC
• Pool Gridcoining with BOINC

Now to be fair, you can combine these methods somewhat. As a Solo Gridcoiner you also get Investor mode thrown in because you also get the 1.5% per year interest on your Balance the same as an Investor does. As a Pool Gridcoiner you also get the 1.5% per year interest as an Investor would.

That said, let's get on with it.
To start as an Investor in Gridcoin is easy as can be. You install the Gridcoin Research Wallet that you can download from here: @gridcoin

• Windows http://download.gridcoin.us/download/downloadstake/GridcoinResearch.msi
• Mac https://github.com/Git-Jiro/homebrew-jiro/releases
• Debian (Ubuntu)https://code.launchpad.net/~gridcoin/+archive/ubuntu/gridcoin-stable
  or you can add the repository and do it this way:
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gridcoin/gridcoin-stable
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install gridcoinresearchd
  gridcoinresearchd

For the Linux GUI (Graphical User Interface) version install gridcoinresearchd-qt instead of the gridcoinresearchd using the same instructions above.

There are packages for other Linux versions as well, find them here:
https://gridcoin.us/Guides/investor-gridcoin-setup.htm

Ok then.....
Back to the choices. To earn as an Investor you only need a few things:

1. A Gridcoin Wallet
2. Some GRC
3. A computer capable of running the wallet of your choice.
4. (the obvious) A reliable Internet connection.

The installation of the wallet I will get into in another article. For now we should assume it's installed and ready to go.
But your wallet has zero balance. We need to fix that. The way it works is the higher your wallet balance the more often you "stake" thereby minting your GRC interest payment and collecting any fees for other transactions that appear on that block. So yes, you "mine" a block to do that but the catch is you need a positive balance to do so and not a Beast of a mining rig full of GPUs. In fact, you can stake blocks with a "headless" linux server using just your CPU just as easily.

The way to do that is to buy or trade for GRC at an exchange. Small amounts really are not feasible so you must be prepared to buy enough to "stake" with the frequency you desire. There is no "too little staking" or "too much staking" it's all a matter of preference. If you are happy getting paid 2 times a year, only buy ~1000 GRC. If you wish to stake daily you will need ~50,000 GRC.

At the time of this writing, ~3000 you stake in ~21 days, ~5000 you stake in ~12 days.
Simple right? Well, not quite that simple. Now you need to take into account Network Difficulty. The higher the Network Difficulty the less often your balance will stake. This can hit low balance of 500 or 1000 GRC pretty hard. Even with 5,000 GRC you might not stake for a month or even 2 months if the Network Difficulty is too high. You also increase your chance of staking by running your wallet connected to the Internet as often as you can. Preferably 24/7/365. Or you could just launch it once a month or once a week or once a year, it's up to you.

The Interest is 1.5% per year. Staking daily to collect whatever interest is available allows you to gain interest on the interest, so stake as often as you can. You also gain interest while offline but obviously you can not collect it until you are online.

OK, so that was Investor mode. Now let's look at Solo-Gridcoining.

Assuming your wallet is installed and running properly we take a look at what is need to solo-gridcoin.
We are not going to get into the details of BOINC Manager or the Gridcoin Wallet at this point either.
We need:

• Everything the INVESTOR needs
• BOINC client and manager installed
• Register for all your BOINC projects manually using the same email and password for each (make it a tough one)
• Add those projects (all of them you registered for) to the BOINC Manager/client on the Wallet-computer so that the wallet can update itself on your projects, work done and keep track of your stats.
• On all your BOINC project sites ADD your self to Team Gridcoin (or you will not get Gridcoins)
• Obtain enough GRC to send a beacon on the Gridcoin blockchain network and wait for the next superblock to record you as existing.
• Obtain enough Gridcoins to stake blocks often enough to get paid as often as you would like to.
• Wait until you stake your first block to get paid at all. Could take weeks or months for the first decent payday. Network Difficulty plays a very large role in how often you stake. There is no set time to stake, only estimates. The estimates are often wrong.
• Add your email to your gridcoinresearch.conf so your wallet can match it to your BOINC accounts.
• You are competing for your share of the gridcoins made available for each day so you need to manage your projects carefully and keep an eye on Magnitude level every day.

Now, let's move on to the Pool-Gridcoining.

To start with we need an account at the pool of our choice. As of this writing the only pool I am aware of and can find is GRCpool at https://www.grcpool.com/ and we will assume your wallet is installed and running.
After making an account at the GRCpool we can leave there for the moment though we will come back to it later to fill in some details. Or you will not get paid....
We are not going to get into the details of BOINC Manager or the Gridcoin Wallet at this point either.
We need:

• Everything the INVESTOR needs but NOT the GRC
• BOINC client and manager installed
• Gridcoin Wallet installed (can be but can also be on some other computer, makes no difference if you are in a pool)
• You do not need any GRC to start
• You do not need a beacon sent
• You do not need your email address in your wallet (gridcoinresearch.conf)
• You do not need accounts at any of the BOINC project sites, ever.
• You do not need to wait more than a day to get paid unless you set the minimum payment too high
• You need to add/remove/manage your projects on GRCpool website pages to be eligible to get paid
• To add Hosts(computers) we use BOINC Manager to "add account manager" and after synchronizing they will appear on your pool website page under Hosts.

That's it! That is what you need.

Now which is the right choice for you? That depends on you. Are you willing and able to get an account at an online exchange like Bittrex, C-cex, Poloniex or the like? Are you willing to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get a decent staking balance? Then INVESTOR mode is a decent place to start.
Of course you can always add BOINC to your investor mode and start either pool or solo gridcoining.

Maybe you like BOINC researching and would like to earn Gridcoins that way. For solo-gridcoining, if you have the funds to start with a decent balance of GRC then you could earn GRC and keep the BOINC credit for yourself under your BOINC CPID and user name. This way you get to keep all the credit for your efforts.

Or perhaps you do not want to invest anything but would like to earn Gridcoins while doing BOINC projects. For this you can join the pool. You do not need any Gridcoins to start with and you could get paid daily. All you need is a pool account and a Gridcoin wallet address to collect your earnings in.
The only drawback with gridcoining in a pool is you do not get any of the credit. No credit for finding a cure, a special number, credits for finishing a valid task, NOTHING. You get NOTHING! Except payments of Gridcoins.

When you, in your opinion, get enough GRC to consider going solo you can. Nothing stopping you. Then you get credit for all those things you were not getting credit for while in the pool.

I hope I made it easier for you to choose a Gridcoining method. I hope to see you on Twitter and IRC (hashtags at top) and wish you Happy Gridcoining!!

Next:
Gridcoining Pool Style!!

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