Welcome to the 2nd Gridcoin State of the Union summary. A lot of exciting progress has been made behind the scenes recently. I hope that this article will help you establish a better view of the Gridcoin network as it is advancing today, and keep you up-to-date with developments on the circuit if you are already involved.

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Welcome to the Influx of New Users!

We have continued to see rapid expansion of the number of CPIDs registered with the network, including almost 100 new CPIDs registered in the last 5 days alone. This not only demonstrates increased confidence in the Gridcoin network and its mission, but also greater acceptance of the cryptosphere as a whole. Team Gridcoin is already the number 1 team providing compute to scientific endeavours through the BOINC platform, and I am excited to see what scientific discoveries we make in the future.

Remember of course that most members joining the Gridcoin network do so through the pool, instead of setting up their own node for solo mining. This means they do not register a CPID with the network, instead mining under the CPID of the pool. As such, the number of users joining will be far greater than what is reflected by the CPID increase.

The Superblock Situation Has Been Patched - Permanent Fix to Follow

After weeks of focussed work by the volunteer development team, the final scaling issues that led to superblock issues have all been successfully identified. This includes both the timing of superblocks, and the inclusion of projects. As you are reading this, we already have a fresh superblock that included all 24 whitelisted projects - the 25th (Leiden Classical) having been removed after a poll on removing it from the whitelist was passed with 92% of vote weight in favour.

The current superblock fixes are temporary, and intended to bridge the gap from now until a mandatory client update is released. This will take at least 2 weeks, as that is the time required to notify all exchanges of the update. In the mean time, you can continue to mine as normal.

Mining Competition is Increasing Rapidly

Many users noticed a significant drop in their magnitude in the most recent superblock. The magnitude drop they are experiencing is not a side effect of the superblock fix, but a result of increased competition on the POR side of the network. Gridcoin 'mining' is never going to be as easy again as it is now - which will result in a rise in the GRC price. Remember also that now is likely to be the cheapest that GRC will ever be available again. Even if you are not actively mining, every wallet collects 1.5% POS annually on its balance.

Poll on the New Logo

A poll running from the 19th of July to the 9th of August is looking to approve a new logo to represent Gridcoin. There are currently 157 votes in favour, accounting for 91.91% of the vote weight, with 14 votes against. This decision impacts your stake in Gridcoin, so it is important you get involved and make your voice heard! You can review the poll, how to vote, and ongoing vote counts on the gridcoinstats.eu polls page.

Note that this poll is specifically targeting the design of the new logo, and that the colour is not fixed. If you would like to get involved in this discussion, please join the Branding channel on the Gridcoin Slackchat.

Commemorative Coin Artwork Finalists

Having completed one round of design and prototyping to explore our manufacturing capabilities, the Gridcoin branding team has identified three possible coin designs that will be put forward for the community to vote on (courtesy of @joshoeah). The winning design will be manufactured by members of Team Gridcoin in a premium material to be used as part of the celebrations of the network's upcoming 1 millionth block. A slight alteration of the design will then likely be uploaded to Shapeways to allow the community to order their own copies without risking their privacy when supplying a shipping address.

One of the designs follows below (double sided), with the rest available for viewing on the Gridcoin Slackchat. A full poll description with all design candidates will be released in the near future as well.

Whitelist Project Changes

All polls on the future of the project whitelist have come to a close. The end results were as follows:

• Leiden Classical to be removed (actioned)
• SZTAKI to be removed (to be actioned)
• Sourcefinder to be added (to be actioned)
• Enigma@Home to be re-added (to be actioned)
• Xansons for COD not to be added (no action required)

The poll voting on USD$30/h developer compensation, to be paid out in GRC, is closing tomorrow. Votes are currently sitting on 98.48% approval with 15.74% of the network having made their voice heard.

What Can The Average GRC User Do?

If you are not interested in participating actively in development, there are still many ways to get involved in the community that you should take advantage of to help shape the network and maintain your mint rate. In order of importance:

• There are still 3 polls active on the network, two of which will have a significant impact on the network. The first is the developer compensation proposal, votes on which close on the 29th of July! The second poll is looking to approve the new GRC logo design and closes on the 9th of August. These decisions affect everyone, so make your voice heard! Your voting power is a function of both your GRC balance and your mining magnitude.

• Upgrade to the latest wallet client, version v3.5.9.7. This includes a variety of improvements and bug fixes. If you are on Windows, the upgrade can be started from within the wallet client under Upgrade QT Client --> Upgrade Client.

• Review the project whitelist and modify your project contributions to suit. This is also a good time to review which projects are receiving the most compute from Team Gridcoin, and redirect your computing power to even out the spread. Remember also to discontinue work on any projects that are being removed from the whitelist, and maybe even get a head start on those being added!

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If you would like to get further involved, or to read up on what is going on with the network, you can check out the following further channels serving the Gridcoin network:

• Gridcoin Github Repo - Full source code and development discussions.

• Gridcoin Developer Slack - Chat with the devs, as well as general channels for troubleshooting and branding discussions.

• Gridcoin IRC - Join the linked channel, then register with NickServ using the instructions at the top of the page so you can join #Gridcoin. This is required to stop someone else stealing your nickname and the associated GRC.

• Gridcoin Steemit - You are here already! =)

• Gridcoin Homepage - The actively maintained and developed homepage of GRC globally.

• Gridcoin Subreddit - Anything GRC related. The developers read the comments posted here, and will in all likelihood directly address any questions you pose within the day.

• Gridcoin Forum and Main Thread - The ongoing megathread where you are most likely to find the original GRC developer Rob weighing in.

• Gridcoin Twitter - Keep up to date with GRC news.

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Image credit:
Banner & Footer, @me-shell
Remaining art, @joshoeah