So we're all used to turning on the TV, and seeing something about Bitcoin. Or going online and seeing ads for alt coins to mine or this or that trading website to use. Like Steemit, which is a excellent way to make concurrency without needing a computer capable of outputting a ungodly hash rate, there are many other currencies obtainable without the need of extreme processing power.
Golem:
Golem is a cryptocurrency that uses your computers computational power, but without butchering your hardware like a dedicated miner would. Golem is a currency based around networking your PC into a massive world wide net of other PCs, which people can then rent out and use for research or development purposes. Whenever someone buys the power of your computer, you gain Golem as a reward for being apart of the network. This is a fairly new and upcomming way of making cryptocurrency, but there are others like it. Heres a link to the Golem project if its of interest: https://golem.network/
Folding@Home:
Similar to Golem, Folding@Home uses your computers power, but not to mine. Folding@Home was started by Stanford University as a way to decentralize the workload used to simulate the folding of proteins, which could lead to the cure for many prevalent and deadly diseases. Folding@Home sends your computer a folding problem, which it then solves and sends back to researchers. You can do this alone, or in a form of "pools" that they call Teams. This is meant for fun, but many places and services are offering cryptocurrency rewards in the form of PPD, or an entire other cryptocurrency called Curecoin, which is a team of its own, offers its own cryptocurrency for mining with them. However, anything but Curecoin will earn you PPD. Heres a link to the Folding@Home: http://folding.stanford.edu/
GridCoin:
Very similarly to Golem, GridCoin is a distributed computing program, and pretty much functions the same way as Golem. Create an account, connect your computer, and start collecting coin for the people that rent the power of your machine. Heres a link: http://www.gridcoin.us/
Factom:
Factom is a truly unique cryptocurrency , and has many uses for the future if it is expanded upon. Factom uses processing power to secure companies documents and data in the blockchain, a truly unique way of encrypting and storing data. Currently it has been adopted by Microsoft and its Azure cloud service. Learn more about Factom here: https://www.factom.com/
Post Editing Notes:
Ok so this is my first article, I did this mainly to see how Steemit functioned and what I can do as far as writing articles. This is not meant to be a 100% concrete article, but instead of creating a goofy mess of words or writing some nonsense as clickbait or a steem grab, I wanted to create something preliminary but worth a read.