[this article can be expanded on in the future]
Overview[]
Gridcoin is a cryptocurrency that focuses on helping Science by rewarding BOINC. BOINC is a distributed computing platform that allows researchers to distribute computational work out to volunteered computers. To reward BOINC, Gridcoin has multiple systems in place. Gridcoin uses a combination Proof of Stake (PoS), Distributed Proof of Research (DPoR), and Scrapers (a form of oracles). For governance, Gridcoin has a voting system in place that weights both BOINC participation and number of coins.
Proof of Stake Hybrid[]
Gridcoin's PoS and DPoR hybrid system currently works as follows. Users must stake a block with PoS and research rewards are layered on top of the PoS block reward.
Scrapers[]
Scrapers are used to collect statistics from BOINC projects in a semi-decentralized way. A series of scrapers download BOINC statistics data from each project. They then compress that data down into a much smaller format. Then every roughly 24 hours, they start sending data to all nodes and the nodes and scrapers separately compare each scraper's data. If enough of the scrapers have the same data, a consensus is reached. This posses is retried for up to 6 hours if consensus is not reached.
History[]
Gridcoin was first started in 2013 by a pseudonymous developer under the name Rob Halford. During it's initial phase, referred to as Gridcoin Classic, Gridcoin used a hybrid Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Research system. On October 12th, 2014, the transition from Gridcoin Classic coins to Gridcoin coins had begun [1]. It ended on April 26th, 2015, 6 months later, with the unclaimed coins going to a foundation fund [1]. During this transition, Gridcoin switched from PoW to PoS and still used the DPoR system.
On October 2018, the Developer Jim Owens started work on a new system, the scrapers[2]. This system made Gridcoin's collection of BOINC statistics more decentralized. Instead of having one proxy which each node would contact, there were multiple collectors of BOINC statistics. As well, this brought down the storage space requirements of BOINC statistics needed on each node.
External Links[]
https://gridcoin.us/ (official Gridcoin website)
https://wiki.gridcoin.us (official Gridcoin Wiki) (update of it in progress)
https://gridcoin.us/assets/img/whitepaper.pdf (whitepaper)
https://github.com/gridcoin-community/Gridcoin-Research (Gridcoin Wallet Repository)
https://github.com/gridcoin-community/ScraperProxy (Scraper Repository)