As my first month in the Gridcoin community has come to an end, I would like to take a look back at my first ever foray into the world of cryptocurrencies. Before June 2017, I was but a Biomedical PhD student with no knowledge of the world of crypto beyond the existence of Bitcoin. I am still learning every day, I am still making mistakes, but the cryptosphere is a place that will be a part of me for the rest of my time on this Earth. Speaking as a scientist, I feel crypto is still at the bleeding edge of science with so many unexplored possibilities. I am excited to see what comes next!
My journey began on a rainy Monday morning in my laboratory in late May, frustrated that the simulations I had set in motion on my research cluster on Friday night were still not completed. I needed these simulations to apply for funding, and this was far from the first time that run-rimes had been holding me back. So, like any sane soul in this day and age, I turned to Google to solve my compute needs.
Before anyone makes the assumption I am well funded, let me clarify - I am not. The funds our lab does receive are through industry sponsorship, which essentially equates to us selling out any IP we develop for money to develop that IP. The world of research is a lot more like a standard day job for a big firm than you might expect... In the wise words of The Upturned Microscope:
Having no money ruled out buying compute cycles from services such as Google Cloud and its competitors. Then, I stumbled across the BOINC platform again. I had been running this piece of software on and off on my home machine for many years, but forgotten about it. This is a distributed compute platform authored by Berkeley in the United States. It enables anyone to outsource their work to volunteer computers all over the globe, where everyday citizens donate their idle clock cycles to research. This was it. Projects involved research for cancer markers, curing Zika, mapping the Milky Way - my research on mapping neuro-degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's fit right in!
Through BOINC, I stumbled onto Gridcoin, a cryptocurrency that rewards users for completing work on the BOINC framework. I wanted to learn more, and where better to start than by signing up and getting involved?
By Monday afternoon, I had BOINC running on my workstation, spending its idle cycles on a range of medicine applications under the World Community Grid umbrella project. I was hooked again! There is something addicting about seeing your computer tick away completing work for the greater good. So much so, that I added a third screen to my workstation to keep an eye on the work from my peripheral - it is oddly satisfying!
Within 2 days, the Gridcoin wallet had successfully registered a beacon with the Gridcoin blockchain and staked its first block - the noobie block. From this point forward, the network would reward me for any compute carried out. How does this tie back to your research, you may ask? We will get there.
Since that Monday morning, I have set up my entire lab to donate any idle cycles to a BOINC project.
Not using that integrated Intel GPU?
Search for aliens with SETI@Home!
Simulation finished overnight?
Use the extra cycles to map the Milky Way through MilkyWay@Home!
Redundant hardware destined for the scrap heap?
Nope. Put it to work solving the remaining Enigma messages from WW2.
You get the idea. I am not compromising my work at all, yet I am able to help any field of my choice without having to do anything beyond setting up the infrastructure once.
Over the course of the last month, I have made 5559 GRC, which equates to around USD$330 for those more interested in the fiat world. But I don't plan to sell it - this is where things get REALLY exciting!
The Gridcoin wallet has a fantastic inbuilt feature called 'rain'. It allows any wallet to rain Gridcoin onto every user in a project of their choice, proportional to that user's contributions to the project. In the future, I hope to add my project to the BOINC network and use the Gridcoin my idle cycles have 'mined' to encourage people to solve my models. Currently, this requires a vetting process by the Gridcoin community, which is designed to prevent people from making fake projects to trick the network into awarding them Gridcoins. In future, I hope to see that requirement partially removed to allow even unvetted projects to be added - not for direct reward, but at least to allow the rain functionality to be utilised.
I have learned a lot about the world of crypto. I read more and more articles every day, keep up with the news, and eye up the prices on the markets. I have never invested in crypto, and I have never made any fiat gains from it. But in the space of one month and starting out as a total noob I have:
- Mined USD$330 worth of coins using only idle cycles
- Contributed real, tangible compute to many scientific fields
- Solved a longstanding problem facing Gridcoin and BOINC
- Signed up to Steemit along the way, met many new friends, and learned a great deal
- Have developed a drive to pushing the cryptosphere to aid research
Thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way. You are all fantastic people in your own right and the world of crypto is a better place with you in it.
Special thanks to all the volunteers all over the world donating their clock cycles to BOINC. As a researcher, you are making all the difference one could ask for. If you are not already involved, you can join BOINC here and Gridcoin here.
Keep crunching.
Dutch
Well Dutch, it's been an absolute pleasure meeting and conversing with you.
I really hope that more of your scientific colleagues join our community.
Although I may not be 'bona fide' scientist like yourself, my consummate obsession with the sciences is somewhat sated by being a part of a community which seeks to further explore and assist in fostering research for the benefit of humankind.
I'm coming up for my 1 year anniversary with Gridcoin very soon, although I have been BOINCing since the early days, and must say that both BOINC and Gridcoin are an incomparable match.
The BOINC Project and the Gridcoin Project compliment each other allowing users, such as myself, the opportunity to participate in cutting edge humanity changing projects and at the same time cover some of our costs.
I hope to be able to offer some of my meager computing power to your project when it comes online.
Thank you Mercosity, for everything you have done for both the community and me. =)
I look forward to sharing my work with you all.
Hi @dutch, I may have a solution yo your requirement ro 'rain' onto non whitelisted projects. A while ago I wrote this Python script that can gather Gridcoin Team RAC stats from the projects, and then allows you to rain funds based on either Magnitude or RAC. Magnitude rain obviously means the project must be whitelisted, but RAC rain should work for any BOINC project (I think, hazy memory).
If you are interested I will dust it off and do a trial. Fair warning, Im a novice coder, so use it at your peril ;)
Oh wow, that would be VERY cool! I have done a few projects in Python, so am happy to have a look at the code you have and help dust it off or test it.
That being said I learnt to use Python 3, and your code looks like Python 2. I will have to study the syntax change.
Regardless, this is very exciting!
Great it would be good to have another pair of eyes on it, I dont think there are many changes from 2.x to 3.x and feel free to fork it or make pull requests if you like.
The cartoon was amazing!
I can't take any credit for that one - go check out The Upturned Microscope for more of the same!
It is a comic series authored by a a cellular biologist. He is very funny and insightful with his work.
What a cool story. And I can feel your enthusiasm here too which is exactly what many who have discovered Gridcoin feel. And this palpable knowledge that you're doing good for others while also being rewarded for a few clock cycles is addictive... Thank you for sharing.
Wow, those are some nice rewards! My magnitude is only a 2.00 so I think my little laptop can't really compare to what you have going on. I'm still having fun with it though. :)
Hey Luke! Every little bit helps, even a laptop. If you're having fun with it while making a difference with your idle cycles, then keep doing what you're doing. =)
Well, by all standards, that was a very amazing first month in crypto and some great observations about the potential uses of Gridcoin in the future! Not to mention that your Steemit reputation has increased steeply at the same time. On my autovoter list, 100%.
Thank you Vortac, that means a lot. You have been an endless source of advice, constructive feedback and quality banter this past month. =)
Upvoted. Nice post:) Also, fun fact: it takes 50 minutes to soft boil and two hours to hard boil an ostrich egg, lol:D
Damn, I would not have guessed that. TIL!
For simple laptop users who want to help the scientific community... Foldcoin is another option. One stop installation software and all. My magnitude on gridcoin was not enough for any meaningful rewards so switched to foldcoin and have made a whole $0.3 on it ;)
You are totally right! There is also Curecoin. I am not sure about the Foldingcoin payout scheme, but the big difference between the Curecoin and Gridcoin payout schemes is probably what makes many users think they are hardly making anything at all at Gridcoin relative to the other coins:
Curecoin pays out users daily based on their contribution to the total protein folding compute for the day. You will immediately be paid out at your maximum rate.
Gridcoin pays out based on your Recent Average Credit (RAC), which translates into magnitude (mag). These climb over the course of weeks, and peak after about a month.
yes . keep crunching .
we can do it . greeting to all corners of this planet
it's also my first month and I have pretty much the same thoughts your post is great and it explain it pretty well thanks a lot for sharing and keep on posting ;)
Dutch, that was a great read for me, thanks for sharing.
And you're rocking an insanely high magnitude for someone's first month.
I'm a noob. Everywhere I read that one need ~10'000 GRC to mine in solo mode and stake ... and that this requires to start in a pool at first (I'm in a pool now). May I ask you how you could overcome this and stake your first block so fast? Maybe I also misunderstood something about the gridcoin...