Well tomorrow is my first month anniversary running BOINC as a member of Team Gridcoin.
What a month it's been, there certainly have been some highs and lows, but all in all I feel very pleased with the results that I've achieved.
I think that I may be somewhat unusual in the vibrant realm of Crypto currencies as I'm an 'oldie' (60+).
I've been a fan of volunteer distributed computing since the day, sometime in 1998/1999, I discovered a screen saver (in those days it was important to protect your CRT display so an image didn't burn into the active phosphorescent coating) which not only saved my screen but allowed me to help search for proof of extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Of course BOINC, as we now know it, didn't come into being then, but later in 2002.
BOINC is software that can use the unused CPU and GPU cycles on a computer to do scientific computing whilst your computer is not being used by you. However let’s not get too technical here. There's lots of information on the net that you can find to satisfy any urges you may have to improve your technical knowledge of this invaluable volunteer computing platform.
So how did I get involved with Gridcoin?
Well that’s another short trip into the past. I ‘dabbled’ in Bitcoin in the early days purely because I’d been involved in the computer industry for some years previously and was fascinated with the concept of a decentralized virtual internet currency.
I did get myself a bitcoin wallet and this wallet is somewhere on an old drive. Maybe sometime I’ll search through the files on all my old hard drives to see how I got on, but from my faded recollection I don’t think too well!
Back to Gridcoin - I had been BOINCing away cheerfully, with the knowledge that I was benefitting the scientific community and humanity with the voluntary contribution of my unused computing power and feeling quite satisfied with myself.
I did find though, that when I talked to my friends about this worthy cause, inevitably their eyes would ‘glaze over’ and I mostly never got much further than that. Oh yes I did get a few people to put BOINC on their laptop or desktop, but that was normally when they had asked me to do them a favour and fix their ‘ailing’ technology.
In return, I asked them if I could put it on for them as a token payment for the job I’d done. I found the 'eye glazing' perplexing as I was such a fan so I sought solutions to this problem during my ‘internet wandering’ and came upon a crypto currency that had become associated with BOINC.
I had discovered Gridcoin!
I started my investigations and after some time I finally decided to stop simply ‘putting my toe in the water’ and dive in!!
So here I am a Gridcoin newbie and becoming more and more evangelical each day!
Why should I use Gridcoin and BOINC?
Well, apart from the fact that we often walk away from our computers and leave them on whilst we attend to other things that have become more immediately important, we waste the power we’ve paid for.
Environmentally this doesn’t make sense, but as human nature dictates, we will continue to do it because we are easily distracted. Other things will always become more important than what we are doing at present. I know, because at home, there’s always something more important that needs doing (or so my wife and kids say).
You don’t (I know I don’t) switch off your computer when you leave! That’d be absurd, yes!
So it’s left on to uselessly idle away, waste electricity and contribute to environmental pollution!
Well if we’re going to leave them on, why don’t we allow the time we are away to be put to good use and benefit humanity at the same time?
We can, by simply loading BOINC onto our computers and doing a bit of ‘number crunching’.
The BOINC screensaver floats across our screen reminding us and those around us that we are doing our bit to help find a cure for Ebola or Zika or research into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Okay I’ve talked about BOINC but what about Gridcoin?
Gridcoin is a decentralized, open source math-based digital asset (cryptocurrency). It performs transactions peer-to-peer cryptographically without the need for a central issuing authority.
Gridcoin was the first block chain protocol that delivered a working algorithm that equally rewards and cryptographically proves solving BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) hosted work, which can be virtually any kind of distributed computing process.
Gridcoin compensates researchers (that’s you) for participating in BOINC projects and contributing computational power towards BOINC research using an energy efficient Proof-of-Stake process, instead of generating heat and using computational power for a Proof-of-Work algorithm. Gridcoin differs from other scientific cryptocurrencies in its ability to support many different kinds of scientific projects and is only limited by what is currently broadcast over the BOINC network.
Gridcoin is an improvement on Bitcoin where computational resources are still being wasted.
The Gridcoin-Research Proof-of-Research algorithm means nearly all of the energy goes to science.
The computational power required to secure the block chain is minimal. In the Proof-of-Research algorithm, the BOINC work is not only used to measure the subsidy and provide a unique alternative to classic work measuring Proof-of-Work schemes, but actually complements the security of the Proof-of-Stake system.
Ok that’s the technical bit. The web will tell you all you need to know if you want to investigate further.
To me Gridcoin is the ‘icing on the cake’! Now you can earn a crypto currency for doing a good deed.
Please come and visit us on IRC WebChat to find out more and get the help you need: