What is Gridcoin (GRC)

What is Gridcoin (GRC)?

Gridcoin (GRC) is an open source Cryptocurrency which securely rewards volunteer computing performed upon the BOINC Platform in a decentralised manner on top of Proof of Stake.

What happened to Gridcoin Classic?

Gridcoin was launched on the 16^th October 2013 by Rob Halförd. The Gridcoin that we know today, however, was initially minted on the 11^th October 2014. Gridcoin Classic used a Proof of Work system instead of the Proof of Stake system that we currently use today to secure the blockchain, Proof of Work is quite wasteful as the resources that could have been used to help further science were instead being used to secure the blockchain.
Coins were burnt from Classic to Gridcoin at a rate of 1:10 where Classic enjoyed a 6 month conversion window, from October 2014 to April 2015.

What is BOINC?

BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) is a distributed computing platform, which was launched at beginning of 2002, where it was originally developed to support the SETI@home project.
BOINC rewards participants with credits for performed work, this is how Gridcoin recognises your contributions.
BOINC is an application available for multiple Operating Systems, such as: macOS, Windows, Linux, Android and FreeBSD.
Unfortunately due to Apple's policy BOINC will not be allowed in the App Store for iOS without a policy change.

How does Gridcoin reward BOINC computations?

Periodically (normally once a day) the Gridcoin Oracle checks the data on the different BOINC projects sites and distributes it to the wallet clients.
When it is ready a client stakes what is called a superblock where the data from the Oracle is incorporated into the block in question and then distributed across the blockchain.
When you stake you automatically receive 10 GRC as a staking bonus and on top of that you receive a bonus based on your contribution relative to other Gridcoin users running the same project.

Where can I get Gridcoin?

Like any other cryptocurrency there are a number of exchanges where Gridcoin could be exchanged at. At the moment of writing this post the current exchanges are:

There are some faucets available for Gridcoin too:

Pools are also available if you are unable to solo mine.

Finally on top of that there is a marketplace for Gridcoin located at:
r/MarketGrid

I'm having issues is there a place I could get help?

Yes, of course there are numerous places to get help.

How does Gridcoin (GRC) differ compared to Curecoin (CURE) or FoldingCoin (FDLC)

The main differences is that Curecoin & FoldingCoin rewards the Folding@home platform, while Gridcoin rewards the BOINC platform, and AFAIK both can't be used to reward users of the other platform.
FoldingCoin doesn't actually have it's own blockchain, it runs on the mainline Bitcoin blockchain, on the other hand Curecoin and Gridcoin both run on their own blockchains.
Curecoin, like Gridcoin, used to use a Proof of Work system to secure their blockchain, however it appears that similarly to Gridcoin they have switched to a Proof of Stake system.

I'm interested, where can I download the wallet?

The official wallet is available on a variety of platforms.

Wallet Downloads can be found here:
Gridcoin.us
Chocolatey Package (Windows)

Third Party Wallets are also available:
Please be warned that while these wallets may be more convenient, since you do not have access to the keys normally, you could lose your money.

Do you have tips for getting started?

There are a lot of tutorials available on the website
If you are unable or unwilling to provide an investment it is highly recommended to use a pool instead of solo mining, It is generally recommended that you should have at least 5000 coins in your wallet, at the current average difficulty, to stake consistently within a 6 month period.
An in depth tutorial on how to get started with pools may be found here
If you're currently using BOINC with your own account don't forget to detach the projects under your username before attaching under the pool's account
If you don't want to wait for the wallet to sync up by itself you can use the official snapshot.
Make sure you verify the checksum.
Do not use snapshots from unofficial sources as you could end up on a fork.
Solo Only:
Don't forget to check to make sure the project you want to use is on the whitelist
Bear in mind that some projects like Einstein@Home and World Community Grid require you to manually enable stats sharing, due to GDPR, before Gridcoin can properly reward you.