The Gridcoin journey: Part 1 - Getting started
Why mine when you can research?
Gridcoin & BOINC
For those completely unfamiliar with Gridcoin: this is how the Gridcoin website describes it:
Gridcoin is a decentralized, open source math-based digital asset (cryptocurrency) which performs transactions peer-to-peer cryptographically without the need for a central issuing authority. Gridcoin securely rewards volunteer distributed computing performed upon the BOINC platform in a decentralized manner on top of proof of stake. Projects range from attempting to cure diseases to searching for extraterrestrial life! You can distribute virtually any kind of distributed computing process through BOINC (utilizing GPU/CPU/Sensors/etc).
So Gridcoin is a cryptocurrency that rewards researching with BOINC projects. I'm not going to attempt to describe what Gridcoin is in further detail since there are quite a few resources that already do. You can find some introductions here:
- The Gridcoin homepage: www.Gridcoin.us
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridcoin
- Video introduction: youtube video
- How BOINC works http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/How_BOINC_works
I have been BOINCing for quite a while. Mostly when I set up a new computer one of the first things I install is BOINC. Going back in memory I think it must be around ten years. I never really cared about what the results were or about joining a team to look at statistics. My intention was only to give away a bit of the spare computing resources to a good cause. One of the catchy slogans for Gridcoin is "Why mine when you can research?". I'm already researching and thus in my head the slogan became "Why research when you can mine at the same time?".
I certainly don't want to scare anyone but this turned out to be no plain sailing. For the moment being the biggest difficulty to me is finding the correct information. And that's exactly where I will try to help out with this series. So, don't be afraid and follow along. In the end it turns out not to be that hard.
Pool mining
Beginners are advised to start with pool mining. I'm a beginner and want to go easy on this so I followed the advice. The steps are described at the Gridcoin website: https://www.Gridcoin.us/Guides/pool.htm First install BOINC and then subscribe to a pool. I figured https://www.grcpool.com is the only good working/stable pool at the moment. I haven't tried another one. This is an opinion based on what I read and since things evolve rapidly that information might be outdated. Please note that the email address is used on several places in Gridcoin, BOINC and the pool. I advise to always take the same email address since it is used to connect the components together. I have not received a single unnecessary message from any party since I started. If you don't trust it you can always set up a spare email address.
The next step is to add projects from the whitelist and this is where it went wrong for the first time. I'm an experienced BOINC user and I add/remove projects using my own account as described on BOINC's wiki:http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Choosing_and_joining_projects. After a couple of days I looked back at the pool account and saw everything value was still zero. So, this was not what I should have been doing. You should instead add projects from your pool profile. The last step is not explained well on the Gridcoin website and the video on grcpool seems to be the only source of this information. So, it's best to follow along with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm2E6pQ-Ifw
There are some differences when you use a pool. Projects that you added to BOINC yourself will not mine on the pool, so I just removed them. I can as well use the resources to mine. Another result of contributing in the pool is that you cannot check status, contribution, stats, … from the BOINC client. For that you have to navigate to your host in the pool. There you'll see the list of subscribed projects. You can find all relevant information under 'host project details'.
If everything went well you should now be mining Gridcoins on the pool and see the results in your pool profile. If you have questions remaining please feel free to ask in the comments section. Stay tuned for the next part about the Gridcoin wallet. Another part that didn't went as smooth as I expected it too. But in the end it turned out being easy.
Great writeup.
At this point in time, that is not just an opinion, but fact. =)
There is one other pool (pool.gridcoin.co) but it appears to have been abandoned and is not paying out.
In case it interests you, if you are solo mining then allowing the project admins to email you will let them alert you to any significant research findings your machines make. Unfortunately, the pool does not let you do this, as the BOINC project attributes all findings to the pool.
As a beginner I'm a bit careful to state my findings as facts.
On the emails: those research findings will be announced in the BOINC manager as well I think? Sometimes I take a look at them but most of the time I don't understand too much of it.
What I meant to say is that one has to give in an email address in lots of places. I myself am not too fond of sharing my email address. There is however no reason to be afraid of doing so is what I meant.
You could of course make an email address just for BOINC (I didnt bother!), but its not a good idea to change it after you registered, it causes problems with CPID
nice writeup, if only this would have been there a few months ago...
Wasnt there a Katie something pool ? Sorry for not remembering the name :)
Yes. I believe it has been renamed to http://pool.gridcoin.co. The project is in beta however and the clear notices about bugs scared me of to use it.
Hey would you mind if I translated this to Greek? Credit will be given of course to you!
Why would you want to do that? Most Greeks speak English and if they don't they will be up for a hard time anyway because of the links I refer to. Sorry for my skepticism but I'm new to steemit and I don't know yet what to trust and what not, who's legit and who's not.
because most greeks (actually all except me) don't visit the gridcoin tag. But they will if I include tags used for the greek language (e.g. greek, greece) and greek people. Your post seemed like a nice start for total noobs and I love promoting gridcoin and bringing new people. Making an extra 1-2 $ thanks to how steemit works is a nice extra. Nevermind, see you around.
Welcome aboard, fellow Griddie. ;)
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