A new feature on GRCpool.com?
I fired up my profile on grcpool.com this morning to check on my mag like I do every day (It's become such a habit since I started crunching!), and noticed something new on the account page. Next to the GRC owing there is now another number and SPARC:
I googled and it turns out that SPARC is a new token based on the Ethereum blockchain that is launching on 1 October. I found this interview on Bitcoinchaser.com where they talk to the developers.
The reddit user "bryhardt" had the following to say on the Gridcoin subreddit after a user by the name of "Grippler" also noticed and asked about it:
"The pool will be tracking SPARC owed which is an Ethereum token. This project is new and not related to the Gridcoin network. I can't guarantee any success or failure of the project, as I am just a user of it also. I had questions from pool members about receiving it so I signed the pool's up on the SPARC site to get the tokens. Therefore, I need to distribute them. There is no withdrawal on the site yet. I have considered taking a GRC fee for the ETH gas I would need to spend to withdraw them since SPARC as no value at this time, but haven't committed to anything yet. If you really want your SPARC, let me know and we can arrange it."
I tried downloading the SPARC whitepaper but keep getting a 404 error. In any case it seems that the Gridcoin community keeps getting more and more interesting.
Perhaps @dutch or @sc-steemit have more information?
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Thanks for the ping. I think it is important someone chip in here and warn users about the dangers of SPARC before you all start to spend GRC/ETH as transaction gas. SPARC announced itself to our community on the subreddit a month ago, and linked us to their webpage.
The webpage included scathing criticism of GRC, most of which was either outdated or factually incorrect regardless of when it was written. Their whitepaper was also riddled with errors, grammatical problems and formatting issues. Worse, they openly admitted on our sub that the whitepaper was outdated, despite an active ICO being ongoing.
Further, SPARC was just onto its second ICO phase. To make it appear like there was a lot of investor interest, they appear to have washed about USD$50,000 worth of ETH through their investment wallet. You can go trace the addresses yourself to check this, and Neuralminer has already done this.
On the other hand, they are very quick to reply to any emails and appear very friendly. I just advise significant caution. It is very easy for anyone to set up a 'dumb' ETH token (one with limited functionality beyond 'being a token').
As of now, you are unable to sell SPARC on any exchange. If you do withdraw it, be very careful that your ETH wallet of choice supports ERC20 tokens or your SPARC will be lost.
You have my 100% upvote as this is an important topic to be brought to the attention of the community. Thank you!
Thanks for the information! Like I said, their whitepaper is currently unavailable on their website and just gives a 404 error. I'm going to keep my eye on the token and see if I can find any further information on it and how it's being received. The fact that they were slating GRC, as you said, and fabricating investor interest seems very fishy though...
That is very concerning too...
I agree with dutch to exercise caution, which should be done for any new ICO anyway. The pool will be distributing SPARC based on magnitude much like GRC does. I have traded several emails with the dev and it has been positive. However, this week, pool 1 and 3 are short on SPARC as they didn't receive them this week during the transfer from SPARC site (but did last week). I don't have an explanation from the dev for this yet. For the reason's dutch explained, withdrawal of SPARC isn't available from the pool yet. This is because it has no value and I would burn ETH gas sending it out. I have considered using GRC as a fee to withdraw, but would like to see SPARC progress a little further before doing so. If you want your SPARC immediately we could work something out, so just let me know. I am not trying to dis their project, but this week it looks like their white paper and twitter links are no longer working...
Thanks for the response @bgb. I'm heeding @dutch's advice and waiting to see what happens. I can't get hold of the whitepaper at all. The site gives me a 404 page not found error which is worrying. I think your decision to wait and see before distributing is a good one. No point spending gas or GRC on a withdrawal until we know what's what. I'm happy to let it accumulate while we see what happens. I assume it will just build up until you decide on a distribution plan or I request it paid out?
Nice post @rahvin84 I asked myself the same thing this morning but was not awake enough or motivated enough to post anything:)
Hahaha! It is Saturday after all!
Dig this article need to do some research , does this all stem from gridcoin
Have a look at @dutch 's comment. They seem to be targeting the same market as Gridcoin and I'm earning SPARC while researching for GRCpool so there is definitely some integration.
Are you mining it ?
I'm mining Gridcoin, yes. Getting about 1.1 coins per day with my antiquated rig. I've done some previous posts about mining that you can check out. Also check out @jedigeiss He is much more tech savvy than I am and started with Gridcoin at about the same time
Awesome stoked to see you managed to start mining
Thanks dude. I'm still pool mining. Hoping to invest maybe $100 into GRC in October to start solo mining. Gridcoin works on proof of stake for solo as far as I understand so you need a couple of thousand coins to be able to have a chance of confirming a block. Right now I have 32 GRC so it's still a ways off!
Thanks for the heads-up - I have not heard of SPARC, only of Golem, Iex.ec
I checked out the project and it seems worthy of backing IMO. They have a presale ending Sunday (I think) that is giving out double rewards - 20,000 SPARC per ETH so this is a great tip. And if you participate in the main sale starting October you can get a 100% bonus up to the limit of the amount you got in the pre-sale. Basically its an opportunity to get more at the pre-sale price.
The key things about SPARC based on my reading of the website:
Since this seems like a great opportunity to get in early I'm chipping in 1 ETH - so far the pre-sale has only raised 75 ETH so it is clearly not widely know about. You can check the address here https://etherscan.io/address/0x013FBAED9c80CC4422FF50D71F4Dc622bC7c8AE2
Thanks for the great tip - upvoted to the max!
I think it's probably important to point out their roadmap calls for eventually dropping BOINC support for more propriety distributed computing products.
Full disclosure: I signed up for an alpha account and have been in contact several times with the developers; as @Dutch said, they are extremely responsive to bugs in the online wallet and have taken some suggestions too.
Thanks for the upvote! Did you check out @dutch 's reservations though? Although I suppose if you have 1 eth lying around to gamble with it's worth a shot. 1 eth should get you 10,000 SPARC from what I saw.
More likely, it utilizes the naivety of people who believe such absurd statements
I'm sorry, I just had to laugh out loud at the naivety of people. lol
The use of technical jargon to bamboozle people.
This is completely offtopic, but I have to ask:
What is this 4th panel you have there (Task Report)?
I am on grcpool as well and I do not have it. (I am in pool 2, if that matters?)
Hi @thorondor. I think I'm also Pool 2. That panel only appears if you crunch WCG work units. If you add WCG as a project and start crunching their tasks it should appear on yours too.
Great to know, thank you!
Has the owner/runner of grcpool said anything about it. Sounds like a good idea but coming about badly, i guess we'll see
"Edit" i found this though -------http://www.sparc-climate.org/about/sparc-office/
I haven't seen any official message from the GRCpool owner as yet. I'll do some digging when I have a chance and do another post with any findings.
I don't think the link you found is related though. Stratosphere-troposhere Processes And their Role in Climate doesn't strike me as an Ethereum token...
Sorry it was the first thing to pop up on google, my bad
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STOPThe use of technical jargon to bamboozle people?
Still waiting to read a modified white paper.
This post has received a 0.76 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @rahvin84.