Your Vision for Gridcoin - Tell Us.
As you have all heard a dozen times by now, we are working on updating the Gridcoin whitepaper.
A whitepaper is "a government or other authoritative report giving information or proposals on an issue."
With a little more flavor, a whitepaper is the guide behind the decisions made regarding the details of a proposal. The introduction to the bitcoin whitepaper, for example, describes the problem and how the proposal about to be described solves that problem.
What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.
The rest of the original crypto whitepaper goes on to describe in detail how a blockchain operates. At this point, that's something everyone here already knows -- it's amazing how time flies. After the bitcoin paper, crypto whitepapers essentially became documents which detailed the specific technical alterations a coin made to the blockchain security protocols. As blockchain security protocols have become more stable, the focus of whitepapers appears to be shifting toward the utility of a blockchain and its incentive structure.
This is Gridcoin's time to shine. We're not here to advance the blockchain protocols -- if a new better one comes out we can upgrade later -- we are here to...
And this is where we need your help! What are the things we must prioritize every time it comes to making a decision in the future?
The whitepaper is going to help define the direction of Gridcoin for years to come, so before we commit to any whitepaper, let's hear what we all think. We are not here to debate, that will come later. Let's try to keep this a positive thread that focuses on the possibilities we all see in Gridcoin.
I'll start.
Here is my condensed view as it relates directly to Gridcoin:
Gridcoin seeks to create a decentralized and sustainable distributed processing network which prioritizes both the utilization of existing Idle Processing Potential (IPP) and the creation of a free to host ecosystem for researchers and individuals with data to process.
To this end, Gridcoin has created an open source blockchain based digital asset (Ticker: GRC) secured by Proof of Stake, and which rewards those who volunteer their IPP to the grid computing network, BOINC. BOINC, The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, is an open-source distributed processing infrastructure which provides scientists and enthusiasts with a means to host and process data for the cost of a server (fractions of a penny when compared to the cost of renting processing power). Volunteers then offer their IPP to specific BOINC projects which help map the Milky Way, detect near earth asteroids, find prime numbers, fold proteins, test cures and vaccines, test chemical and molecular combinations, Search for Extraterrestrial Life (SETI), crack codes from WWII, and more.
Unlike our competitors, Gridcoin believes that the power to analyze the endless data of the universe belongs to everyone, not just those with the funds to purchase mass volumes of processing power. Gridcoin also believes that a network which encourages individuals and entities to volunteer their IPP presents a more efficient and sustainable option than a network which incentivizes the centralization of processing power.
For a more details into how I view Gridcoin in terms of the power of distributed processing, check out my article:
Distributed Data Processing - Freeing the Power of Information
Thank you for the time!
Edit Added for clarification:
IPP = Idle Processing Potential = All the spare processing power which exists in the world from idle PCs, phones, and the Internet of Things.
My future vision for Gridcoin from a couple of recent posts:
https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@guk/gridcoin-how-to-generate-value
https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@guk/project-gridcoin-generating-value-v2
I'm probably a minority but I'd like to see less emphasis on the "noble efforts for humanity" blah blah angle and more on the "do something useful with electricity that Bitcoin is just throwing away" front. Gridcoin and BOINC can be perfectly useful for tons of commercially interesting things and we don't emphasize that nearly enough, which makes it seem like some sort of gimmicky thing for academics rather than a generally useful network that's relevant to anybody with a lot of data they want to crunch for cheap or free. It's both, not one or the other.
Hey @jringo,
this is great news! Without knowing (mea culpa) if there are currently regulations via BOINC active, I would like too see that the data produced by the Gridcoin network stays completely accessible, without paywall. I realise that this is maybe complicated to put into a whitepaper, but that is a fundamental aspect of community data processing in my opinion!
What data produced are you referring to?
Well - everything that is calculated in a whitelisted project. It is no use to offer a great computation plattform when the results are published in non open access journals. There should be the need, if someone wants to launch a whitelisted project, that the results are published open access. As I said, I do not know if BOINC requires this, or if it does not matter where the stuff is published to BOINC.
I think that's a good start.
I would add that we believe in utilizing all kinds of computer processors that may have spare capacity. We encourage improvements in the state of the art of computer processing, and increased power efficiency and reduced overall power usage are part of our goals.
I'm interested to see a BOINC-Gridcoin merger in the future. There are a bunch of hurdles that would need to be overcome for this to happen, not least the fact that BOINC is centralized and Gridcoin is decentralized. There are probably a bunch of other technical hurdles that the devs are far more qualified to discuss than I am.
Anyways, the basic idea behind this merger is to have a fully decentralized computing ecosystem which is free and open to anyone, from individuals to large scale research collaborations. This would require moving beyond the centralized and project-based ecosystem which BOINC uses currently, and which has proven to be somewhat clunky and geared more towards big, tech-savvy research groups with a continuous supply of workunits. Interestingly, BOINC seems to have inclinations to move away from this model as well, see http://boinc.berkeley.edu/tbd.php
A crucial step would be to develop and streamline a pipeline that enables e.g. the average academic researcher to submit jobs on an as-needed basis. As someone who works in computational physics, I think there is a big market in academia for a pipeline of this type.
Consistent with this, I do like the idea of branding Gridcoin primarily (though not exclusively) as an engine behind scientific research instead of a consumer platform. And yes, this does mean I get excited about the "blah-blah" marketing statements about altruism, environmentalism, furthering humanity's knowledge, etc. ;)
I should add that creating such a pipeline that is truly decentralized may be very difficult. A few issues that come to mind include... 1) Vetting submissions to the network and making sure they're not spam jobs, illegal activity, or mining of other cryptocurrencies (!), 2) Prioritizing workunits (what if the number of workunits submitted far exceeds the network's capacity?), 3) Keeping users informed of the impact of their calculations (what scientific results were enabled by Gridcoin?)
Although it may sound minor, I think the last point is important. In my opinion, one of the reasons BOINC has been around for so long is users really do get excited about the science they're making possible. If BOINC moved away from a project-based ecosystem, however, it's unclear how users would be informed of their scientific impact (imagine hundreds of small-scale researchers utilizing the network ... how could we inform the Gridcoin community of e.g. any papers published as a result of the network's computation?)
From Slack: "Just thought I'd throw something in here (I have no steemit account). RE: Your Vision for Gridcoin, et. al. etc., ad hoc, ad lib. Not that this is important for Gridcoin as a whole but, I've often wondered if we could have a list of Projects that are semi-active (maybe yellow list?). Just like to see more than Maths projects. The End." - TheEarl
I would put more emphasis in the fact that GRC encourage a noble way of taking advantage of the excess of non-used computing power existing in any domestic device in order to collaborate in the solution of complex problems posed by research scientist of any discipline... or so :-)
Fantastic post, better community!
I guess this isn't clear in my piece.
IPP = Idle Processing Potential = All the spare processing power which exists in the world from idle PCs, phones, and the Internet of Things.
= )
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