GRIDCOIN - STATE of the NETWORK
Report #32 - February 18th, 2019
Development
We do not have a developer update for this report, though @barton26 has agreed to help integrate his updates with these reports moving forward. Expect more here in the future! (If not next report, the report after).
A general overview:
Camilla is on testnet and moving smoothly.
The scraper that will be replacing the “neural net” is also on testnet and operating smoothly.
Denise also has some other PRs locked and ready to go.
For now we’ll leave you with links to the milestone PRs
News
Below are major news items compiled from the last two weeks. If you want to make sure a news item is mentioned to the next report please reach out to @jringo, @parejan, or @crypto-swiss.
Also, don't forget that the next report (March 4th) is reserved for anyone who writes an article they want to be featured! If your article is featured you will earn yourself 1,000 GRC. Any piece needs to be submitted to @jringo, @parejan, or @crypto-swiss by March 1st.
More information found here.
GUI Implementation Bounty and Fund Match
The community has been looking to improve the Gridcoin UX for some time. To get things rolling Madmaxpayne proposed, passed, and completed the design of new assets for an updated GUI. The next step is to use these assets to build a polished interface that will help both new and standing participants. Some highlights from the designed assets are a new install and setup wizard, a streamlined visual experience, a new poll interface with poll types and sorting features, and the potential for embedded information right on the homepage of the client.
The core development team is considering that rebuilding the GUI (not the core) from the ground up in a modern framework might be the best path. Anyone considering putting work into implementing the GUI is encouraged to start a discussion with the dev team.
Anyone who successfully completes a new GUI will have access to a growing bounty, currently standing at 181,000 GRC.
A proposal to match up to 250,000 GRC of the bounty raised by the community with funds from the foundation is currently being polled. The poll ends on February 27th.
For more information have a look at the links below.
Main Discussion Thread
Update 1
GRC Tipbot on Reddit
@Sau412 recently put together a tipbot for GRC on the Gridcoin subreddit. You can deposit, withdraw, and tip by using simple commands right on the thread or in a private message to a bot. @Grider123 has compiled a tutorial on how to use the commands for this bot. Find more information at the links below.
Tutorial: Gridcoin Tip Bot
Gridcoin Tipping Party
Coin Control and UTXO Splitting Video Tutorial
UTXO splitting has been a topic of conversation since the discussions on CBR began. @Delta1512 has put together a short tutorial to help people sort out how to split UTXO’s. It seems he and @roboticmind are working on a series of video tutorials to help guide people through the sometimes overwhelming amount of information around Gridcoin. If you still don’t know what UTXOs are and why you might want to split them, do not worry. For the most part any UTXO splitting for staking optimization only affects participants with very large balances. There will be a video that covers what UTXOs are in the future.
You can view the video at the link below:
Coin Control and UTXO Splitting Using the Gridcoin Wallet
Updating Gridcoin Documentation
Documentation is a critical part of any UX. The community has been talking about and chipping away at updating as much as possible, though it has been slow moving. There is the github wiki, the wikipedia, the website, the Gridcoin wiki, and probably half a dozen other documentation hubs out there in need of updating. There is now a channel on slack for anyone who wants to help: #wiki-contrib.
Below is a link to a general overview document in development. Helping with documentation is one of the simplest ways for non-coders to get involved with a project. Write something to the best of your knowledge and bring it into the community. People will happily comb through and point out sections that need explanation, sections that are dated, and sections that stand out as ideal descriptions. If there are questions about how things work, ask them and people tend to respond fairly quickly. Also, do not be afraid to ask for GRC support or donations for your work! From a selfish perspective, helping with documentation is a great way to build a GRC balance.
A thread that demonstrates why clear, concise, and accurate documentation can help spread awareness about Gridcoin is also linked below.
Contribute to Gridcoin: Help Update Documentation
Example Thread: Gridcoin Proof of Research Documentation
Gridplace Blockchain Game
Who here remembers r/place, the collaborative game where people placed (fought over?) pixels on a canvas?
If you don’t, here’s a brief video on the project.
@Delta1512 has built a similar project using GRC and the Gridcoin blockchain. Delta summarizes it best in his post, so if you are interested have a visit to the link below.
Gridplace Blockchain Game is Now Live
GRC/STEEM Trading Pair
A new trading pair has popped up on the Bitshares DEX thanks to @hotbit. There is not much more to say about this, so we happily direct you to the announcement thread and a quick tutorial on using the Bitshares DEX, both written by @hotbit.
New Trading Pair: STEEM/GRC on Bitshares DEX
How to Deposit STEEM to your Bitshares Account: Quick Overview and Steps
Twitter Poll
There is a running poll regarding Gridcoin’s community twitter, GridcoinNetwork. The poll ends on February 23rd. There has been a lot of discussion around this poll as it deals with the management of Gridcoin’s assets outside of development which is something that has not developed at pace with the Gridcoin protocol itself. Below is the original poll thread along with two dissenting opinion threads.
New Twitter Contributors: Community Poll Launched Today
In Response to Currect Conflicts Regarding Social Media and Engagement
That does it for the news for this report! Now for your biweekly dose of stats.
STATISTICS UPDATE
Every other week we bring you the most up to date statistics regarding the operation of the Gridcoin blockchain and Gridcoin BOINC projects. The information is gathered from Thursday to Wednesday on fortnightly basis and compiled from the getblockstats RPC command in the Gridcoin wallet, BOINCStats, GRCPool, Gridcoin Stats and from individual project websites.
BLOCKCHAIN STATISTICS
Blockchain statistics from 3/February to 16/February
The table below contains the blockchain statistics and covers blocks 1,505,582 to 1,518,252.
Blockchain charts
The charts below contain the longer term blockchain trends.
BOINC STATISTICS
Team and pool statistics from 3/February to 16/February
The table below contains BOINC team and pool statistics of the last 2 weeks.
Team and pool charts
The team and pool charts contain the longer term team and pool trends.
PROJECT STATISTICS
Project tables from 3/February to 16/February
The table below contains the project statistics of the last 2 weeks.
Project charts from 3/February to 16/February
The charts below contain the project contribution breakdown of the last 2 weeks.
(Source: BOINCStats)
This concludes the 32nd Gridcoin State of the Network Report. We’ll see you in two weeks. Happy crunching!
Donate to these reports with GRC: S2wn8dq1S39fJyh5Voo7xKwLzFaKyJhRkb
I wonder if GridPlace will lower the amount of empty blocks the network has.
Definitely something I'm looking forward to watching
I would think so, at least a little anyways, I still gotta finish drawing a picture
Several months in a row loosing computational power / users, etc.
Anyone has a clue why is this happening?
Could say something about the market, something about boinc projects added or removed, GDPR, or whatnot, though I personally think swings are expected in short time frames (3-12 months). In larger practical scales we're going up in most metrics.
Most of the stats are covering up to 1 year back, which is a good % of all this project's "Age".
And almost all trends are going down, some since 1 year ago, some other as of November aprox (somehting happened?) Just see Acitve members and % Of Active members (gridcoind Boinc team).
Jringo is right about the effect on the chart trends regarding boinc projects being added or especially removed from the whitelist. For example, the Gridcoin team on PrimeGrid is still ranked as the 4th top team with active members crunching away even though the project dropped off the whitelist in October 2018. Similarly, the Gridcoin team on Einstein is still ranked 2nd, but the project has been off the whitelist since June 2018. If earning GRC research rewards was the sole incentive for crunchers, they would move their computing power to the projects that maximize their earnings. However, we see that some crunchers stay with a project and team Gridcoin even if it is no longer whitelisted.
6.57 Petaflops 👌