Below is a working draft for a new Github wiki. The Github wiki is a, if not the main resource for anyone wanting to contribute to Gridcoin and desperately needs to be updated. Please help me finish it up. If you want to help reach out on discord or slack. If you're in slack, join #wiki-contrib for a link to the gdoc.
Note: This is a script conversion from the gdoc to markdown and probably has a number of formatting errors. The content is accurate.
Gridcoin Research
Introduction
Gridcoin is a dual-incentive open-source blockchain. Incentive one, stake rewards, rewards participants for securing the ledger through a proof-of-stake protocol. Incentive two, research rewards, rewards participants for contributing to approved projects hosted on the distributed computing infrastructure, BOINC.
BOINC, the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, hosts major institutional computing
projects such as IBM's World Community Grid, SETI, and data from the Large Hadron Collider, alongside projects developed by students, enthusiasts, mathematicians, researchers, and citizen scientists.
More information on BOINC can be found at [X,Y,Z].
The Gridcoin whitepaper can be found at:
https://gridcoin.us/assets/img/whitepaper.pdf
General Info
Blockchain
- Genesis Block: October 11th, 2014
- Algorithm: PoS v10 [link]
- Block spacing: 90 Seconds
- Premined: 0% - Initial distribution based on Proof-of-Burn from Gridcoin Classic
Economics
- Supply: 400 million+ GRC
- Inflation by Stake Rewards: 0.85%-
- Inflation by Research Rewards: 2.56%-
Blockchain
The Gridcoin blockchain is secured through a proof-of-stake protocol. Blockchain security incentives come in the form of a 10 GRC reward per block.
Details on much of the PoS economics can be found in the blue paper section "Expected Time to Stake and Net Weight."
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NwEBSKuG2IvZXPvzbTEvZLpaN2JCP_nK/view
Incentive
The Gridcoin ledger issues GRC for two tasks. Stake rewards incentivize participants to contribute to ledger security. Research rewards incentivize participants to contribute to distributed computing tasks hosted on approved BOINC projects.
- Total GRC Minted per Day: ~37,600 GRC static target
- Ratio of Stake-mint to Research-mint: 25:75 static
- Monetary Inflation by network: 3.41% disinflation; 2.48% after 10 years
Stake Rewards
Stake rewards were set to a static "constant block reward" protocol in October 2018. Every block staked mints a set number of GRC for the staker. This incentive is intended to encourage network participants to maintain an active balance on the network, thereby increasing network security.
- Mint: 10 GRC per block; 9,600 GRC per day static target
- Monetary Inflation by Stake-mint: 0.85% disinflation; 0.79% after 10 years
Research Rewards
Research rewards are distributed based on a predetermined daily pool of GRC. The pool is divided among contributors to approved BOINC projects based on the relative contributions of participants and the relationship of computation contributions among projects.
- Mint: Target 28,000 GRC per target 26 hour interval
- Monetary Inflation by Research-mint: 2.56% disinflation; 2.08% after 10 years
Formula
Whitelist
The Gridcoin whitelist is a subledger of network approved BOINC projects. Only contributions to whitelisted projects will count toward a participant's earned research rewards. Projects are added to the whitelist through a process which involves project willingness, security and validation checks, and a network poll. Projects are removed from the whitelist by failing to provide work, failing a security or validation check, or through a network poll.
Included in the whitelist mechanism is an intermediary subledger called the Greylist. The Greylist is intended to reserve a project's whitelisted status in the event that the project temporarily suspend work or otherwise go offline.
The whitelist subledger is stored in Gridcoin superblocks.
Details on both the whitelist and greylist are compiled at:
Team Requirement
To receive GRC for BOINC contributions, a participant must join the Gridcoin BOINC team. The intent of the team requirement is to simplify participant stats collection.
Continuing developments to the Gridcoin protocol seem to be rendering the team requirement obsolete, though there are no solid plans to remove the requirement in the near future.
BOINC Credits and RAC
BOINC issues BOINC credits to participants for completed work. RAC is the Recent Average Credit of a participant. RAC is defined by BOINC and serves as a smoothed contribution curve. It is utilized to determine a participant's magnitude.
Formula:
RAC(new) = RAC(old)d(t) + (1-d(t))credit(new)**
Where d(t) = e^(-ln(2)t / 604800)*
and t is the time (in seconds) since the last RAC recalculation.
Magnitude
Magnitude is the mechanism which translates participant RAC to earned research rewards, or GRC owed. Magnitude is determined through a calculation involving a participant's contribution to a project relative to other participants contributing to that same project, the number of whitelisted projects, and a targeting "magnitude unit".
Formula
Research Savings Account (RSA)
A participant's earned research rewards is calculated every twenty-six hours with a superblock(described in section <x.xx>). That data is stored in the participant's research savings account (RSA). A participant's RSA is associated with a beacon (described in section <x.xx>) for as long as that beacon is kept active.
Receiving Earned Research Rewards
A participant receives the earned research rewards stored in their RSA when they stake a block.
Technologies
The Gridcoin protocol is comprised of mechanisms from several proven blockchains along with several unique mechanisms developed to fulfill Gridcoin's function.
The "Neural Net" and the Superblock
The "Neural Net" is the process which outputs a superblock. A superblock contains data pertaining to projects (RAC), participant contributions to these projects (magnitude), and other participant information such as their associated beacon and RSA information.
Beacons
Beacons tie a participant's wallet with their BOINC account. Beacons must be renewed every five to six months.
Scraper
The scraper is a tool which collects participant data from approved BOINC projects. It is intended to lessen the load on project servers while maintaining decentralized BFT.
Organization and Community
Gridcoin is organized into two groups: development and operation.
Development is organized as a contribution and reputation based meritocracy. Those who contribute the most maintain the most power. Final decisions, when necessary, are made by the longest standing developer after deliberation.
Operation is organized in a top down hierarchical structure determined by legacy. Those who maintain power are given access to more power. Final decisions, when necessary, are made, after deliberation, by those who have maintained power the longest.
Voting
The Gridcoin ledger is capable of organizing and storing polling information. There are several ways to organize this information:
- By Stake - Each GRC is weighted as 1
- By Magnitude - Each magnitude is weighted as 1
- By Stake and Magnitude - Each GRC is weighted as 1 and each magnitude is weighted as a calculation involving total stake, total magnitude, and a constant to determine the desired stake to magnitude weight ratio
- By Beacon - Each beacon is weighted as 1
- By Wallet - Each wallet is weighted as 1
Voting is used to inform development and operation decisions.
Community
The Gridcoin community exists across multiple platforms, many of which are linked under "Resources".
Main protocol development takes place on the Gridcoin development repo while community development and assets are hosted on the community repo.
FAQ
How long does it take for my RAC/MAG to level out after starting up?
How long to earn POR rewards with x amount staked?
https://www.reddit.com/r/gridcoin/comments/a51ne4/how_long_to_earn_por_rewards_with_x_amount_staked/
How big is the Gridcoin network?
https://www.reddit.com/r/gridcoin/comments/afjvg4/the_size_of_the_gridcoin_network/
Formulas
RAC
RAC(new) = RAC(old)d(t) + (1-d(t))credit(new)**
Where d(t) = e^(-ln(2)t / 604800)*
and t is the time (in seconds) since the last Recent Average Credit recalculation.
Notable Roles
The following is a current list of volunteers carrying out roles in the Gridcoin community.
Development
Core Developers
Marco Nilsson (
Client Builds
Richard Leckinger (
Martin Schimandl (@Git-Jiro) - macOS
Albert Mikaelyan (@Tahvok) - AUR
NeuralMiner (@NeuralMiner) - Chocolatey
Matthias Bach (@theMarix) - openSUSE/Fedora
Whitelist Administrator
Testnet Coordinator
Exchange Coordinator / Point of Contact
NeuralMiner (@NeuralMiner)
Management
Operators
Social Media
CM (@cm)
Noah Blaker (@Noah Blaker)
NeuralMiner (@NeuralMiner)
Community Websites
Gridcoin Community Website
Web Developers
CM (@cm)
Block Explorers
Gridcoin Stats
Owner
GRC Explorer
https://grcexplorer.neuralminer.io/
Owner
NeuralMiner (@NeuralMiner)
Live Community Forums
Gridcoin Community Hangout
Organizer
Schedule
Saturdays @ 7pm UTC
Location
Gridcoin Mumble Information: Label: Gridcoin Address: 207.148.10.181 Port: 64738 Username: Enter your username, try to pick one people will recognize you by - i.e. your IRC username
The Fireside Chat
Organizer
Hosts
jringo
ilikechocolate
Thegoblinpopper
Schedule
Thursdays @ 8pm EST
Location
Gridcoin Discord in #the-fireside channel
Privileges
The following is a list of "People with Power". These people have been trusted with access to important accounts.
Master Key Holders
Gridcoin on Github
https://github.com/gridcoin-community
- CM (@cm, gh/grctest)
- Marco Nilsson (
- NeuralMiner (@NeuralMiner), gh/NeuralMiner
- Tomas Brod (
), gh/Tomáš
Other Contributors
Sebastian Kung (@TheCharlatan) - wallet development
Resources
Repos
Source: https://github.com/gridcoin-community/Gridcoin-Research
Community Development: https://github.com/gridcoin-community
Main Resources
Websites:
Block Explorers:
Whitelist and Project Viability:
Social Media, Chats, and Forums
- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/gridcoin
- Reddit (ru): https://reddit.com/r/russiangridcoin
- Steemit: https://steemit.com/created/gridcoin
- Gridcoin Telegram: https://t.me/gridcoin
- Discord: https://discord.me/page/gridcoin
- Slack: https://join.slack.com/t/teamgridcoin/shared_invite/enQtMjk2NTI4MzAwMzg0LTUzMmY0YjdiNzYxYzQ0MDc3MGE1NjQ3Nzg2NWMzZTUzMjAwZjdhMWI1YWUzMDE4YzQyZjVjMjMzOTc1M2RmMmM/
- Rocket.Chat: https://chat.gridcoin.io/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GridcoinNetwork
- YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/GridcoinNetwork
- Tumblr: https://gridcoin.tumblr.com/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/gridcoins
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gridcoin.network/