Due to the discussion about adding Masternodes to the Gridcoin blockchain. (Rob's proposal is not looking good in the polls) It made me ponder about how much computing power and network resources we need for Gridcoin to reach its goal of giving everyone who contributes to BOINC Gridcoins. I think that we could start by figuring out how much we are currently using with our 3,000 active members and come up with a per member figure to determine the overall amount needed for the entire BOINC system. (Maybe a descriptive function?) In addition, the way in which this infrastructure increase would be carried out would matter as well. In regards to Gridcoin blockchain network infrastructure, I have determined a few routes.
Physical Servers:
I am a fan of having physical servers for blockchain services because it increases the amount of computing available and they are cool.
Something like this for home users.
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/4U/8048/SYS-8048B-TR4F.cfm
Something like this if you have a rack and proper cooling.
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/7U/7089/SYS-7089P-TR4T.cfm
Cloud Servers:
But of course we can always utilize cloud servers. Anyone know of cloud providers that have free trails like google cloud? (I used my 300 USD Google trail on Amicable Numbers)
Current Volunteers:
The final option would be to just continue to use the system we already have and that (for the most part) is working for all of us participating. This would be assuming that the number of nodes would continue as a function of overall community size.
To evaluate these options, I was thinking that we need to describe them in terms of cost to the users (general community and node operator), cost to the Gridcoin foundation (if any), and potential impacts to coin value (both in terms of GRC:BTC and GRC:USD or respective currency unit).
On a side note, I know not of a blockchain that accounts for network resources used. (Like I upload X MBs of data to other wallets and receive X amount of coins or even just acknowledged within the chain). Maybe Gridcoin could be the first to incorporate accounting for network resources utilized? Let me know if this is innovative or has been done before.
The Gridcoin blockchain/network should use as little computational resources as possible. Therefore no dedicated servers should be needed. The power of P2P of consumer level hardware should be enough.
Not talking about boinc and the actual scientific computation here.
Scaling to the size of bitcoin or attempt to replace Visa will surely hit a roadblock. However unlikely is that to happen, the problems could perhaps be solved by clustering as described in Freedman&Mazières: "Sloppy hashing and self-organizing clusters".
Rewarding users for their upload, download storage and processing for blockchain, however small it is, would be awesome. But I am not aware of any algorithm that can prove their contribution in a decentralized, consistent and lightweight manner.
I agree with that sentiment. I am running under the assumption that Gridcoin is functional with the amount of processing power we currently have and that it will be sufficient for years to come.
As far as the M. J. Freedman & Mazières idea (link below), it sounds good to me. It also appears to include an algorithm for a emergence capturing mechanism in order to trigger the clusters into self-organizing behavior.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2901175_Sloppy_Hashing_and_Self-Organizing_Clusters
Good to know. That might mean that it has not been done yet. Add value to Gridcoin? Maybe we start simple, like just recording how much "Out:" is recorded in the Network Traffic tab of the Debug Console. We can assume that this approach would be fraught with questions. Such as "How do we not record the same network traffic twice?", "What do we do with this information?", and "Do we record downloads too?".
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