Starting the gridcoin journey

My parents moved to their retirement home last week. In return for helping them move out, they let me have their "old" computers. My parents bought new computers every year or so, so I was looking at a few computers to play with. This came at a great time as I have been looking at doing altcoin mining.

I have done some research into the cybercrime and terrorism nexus, and became interested in btc two years ago. Even then, mining for btc at my tech level wouldn't have been "profitable" ...unless you accounted for the rise in btc value over time. Oops.

Two weeks ago, I started looking into altcoin mining to make up for lost opportunity in btc. I don't remember what led me to Gridcoin, but I was enthralled by the concept as soon as I saw it. Not only is it doable without any startup cost in tech, but the fact that the crunching is used for an objective purpose beyond the mining itself.

You earn gridcoin (grc) by participating in BOINC computing. This is a two step configuration, requiring both the Gridcoin wallet and the BOINC managing app. BOINC is an open source package that allows you to donate your computer's processing power to various research projects. The long running SETI search from home project is an example of how this works, and is currently a BOINC project. There are medical, computational, and mathematical projects within the scientific projects to choose from.

BOINC software and support can be found at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

You don't need Gridcoin to support research, and can volunteer your computer's time to BOINC without getting involved. However, you can earn (mine) the altcoin Gridcoin while helping scientific research.

For an explanation of how Gridcoin works and it's download link, I point you to http://www.gridcoin.us/index.htm

So conveniently for me, my parents call on my aid while I am debating Gridcoin, and now I have a stable of computers to work with.

I started the journey Friday night using my own laptop. I installed the BOINC manager, and chose SETI as my project. I then installed the Gridcoin wallet. I have to warn you now that the Gridcoin wallet can be a pain in the butt. It has a long startup time, and can frequently crash. In addition, gaining startup Gridcoin may be more difficult than the tutorial video suggests.

One concept in Gridcoin generation is Proof of Stake; mining becomes "easier" when you already have a positive Gridcoin balance. I will refer you to the site for specifics, as I do not want to misinform. However, once you have generated some research, you can be gifted a stake of grc by the http://pool.gridcoin.us/Faucet.aspx
I am closing in on the required amount of research, and hope to complete that today. However, current Gridcoin users can also help me out at grc
SLsASuQngrGLBCYrTPXjCm34PQUCCi26Yh hint hint wink wink!

Currently, I have not completed my mining setup. I have installed the BOINC software on two laptops. I have several computers to reformat and clean up...I really really hope my parents backed up all those pics of the nieces and nephews (yes, they did!). Since Gridcoin mining works on research completed, you can set up your BOINC projects before you set up your Gridcoin wallet.

Two notes, you can set up multiple computers to work on one BOINC project by using the same email address for each BOINC installation; DO NOT use this email address in public (as in social media , etc) as it provides a point of attack for cyber criminals to steal your work

I have not sent out an alert to the Gridcoin network ( a beacon) as of yet, so there are at least a couple of days to go before I am actively "mining". I want to emphasize that you will not be up and running quickly if you choose the Gridcoin approach to altmining, Instead, you should look at the potential of value of the coins, and the intrinsic value of the research you are helping to complete. If you are interested in doing the volunteer computing on it's own merits, you may also wish to consider collecting Gridcoin for the possibility that your rewards may be more than moral!

Next post, I'll go into more detail about completing the Gridcoin setup, and give you the working parameters of the computers I have set up in the meantime.

Good mining!