Bitcoin + Science = Gridcoin

May be, just may be, if Satoshi Nakamoto took a step further, Bitcoin would be much more widespread today, and backed up by something much more substantial than the human beliefs - the human knowledge.

46000 PetaFLOPS (or 3600 Terahashs/s) of network power is wasted on the accumulation of blockchain "garbage" to solve problems that eventually add no real value to the world. Imagine, you could give a fraction of that power to a P2P network, that attempts to solve problems in the areas as diverse as mathematics, medicine, molecular biology, climatology, and astrophysics.

Sounds naive and far fetched? Then imagine you could get a handsome reward for your efforts.

What is Gridcoin?

Launched 2 weeks ago, Gridcoin (GRC) is a new cryptocurrency based on the Bitcoin protocol. It uses Scrypt as a proof-of-work algorithm  - the same algorithm that powers Litecoin. It is designed to be mined with consumer-grade hardware, and provides faster transaction confirmations (2.5 minutes on average).

Gridcoin is scheduled to produce approximately 168 million currency units, and is designed to give greater rewards to those who donate part of their processing power to the Berkeley Open Infrastructure Network Computing (BOINC) . Block completion is awarded with a mere of 5 GRC without the utilization of BOINC. However, the rewards go sharply up once BOINC is utilized, and range from 6 to 150 Gridcoins.

What is BOINC?

The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is is the "Wikipedia" of the computing power - an open source middleware system for volunteer and grid computing. Originally, it was developed to support the SETI@Home project. However, soon after it became useful as a platform for other distributed applications. The most notorious among them are:

• SETI@Home - searches for radio evidence of extraterrestrial life
• World Community Grid - research of HIV/AIDS, cancer, dengue fever, malaria
• Einstein@Home - searches for gravitational signals emitted by pulsars
• Rosetta@Home - helps researchers develop cures for human diseases
• Climate Prediction - studies climate changes around the globe
• Cosmology@Home - searches for the mathematical model that best describes our Universe
• LHC@Home Classic - improves the design of the CERN LHC particle accelerator

BOINC is already popular, with nearly 3,000,000 users worldwide, who donate their processing power to the total of 81 different projects. Powered by Gridcoin community, the network is likely to become one of major tools in any scientific research.

Ready for Gridcoin?

Below is a list of links that should get you started.

The official Gridcoin website: www.gridcoin.us
Gridcoin-QT for Windows: www.gridcoin.us/download/gridcoin.zip
CgMiner for Windows: www.gridcoin.us/download/cgminer-3.5.0-windows.zip
BOINC for Windows: boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boinc_6.6.38_windows_intelx86.exe
Mining instructions: www.gridcoin.us/download/GridCoinMiningInstructions.pdf

The main thread on BitcoinTalk: bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=324118.0
The first GRC giveaway thread: bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=324341.0

How can you help?

Gridcoin is only 2 weeks old, and it badly needs you to spread the word out. There are already some initiatives, that aim to help the project. One of them is a petition to list Gridcoin on the major cryptocurrency exchanges. More initiatives are needed.

Exchange Gridcoins. Every pizza you buy is nothing but a long term investment on your behalf. Money should work, otherwise it is as good as useless.

Give some food to the miners - make transactions, even a small ones. Every transaction you make is another happy miner with 150 GRC in his hand.

Donate, and let others donate. Every giveaway thread you create brings more attention to the currency. The more attention it gets, the more valuable your share becomes.