This one started a couple weeks ago. If you are already running BOINC (rosetta, DNA sequencing and other distributed science programs) it makes sense to get a bonus!
What is Gridcoin?
http://gridcoin.us/GridCoin is a new peer-to-peer internet based cryptocurrency that aims to provide real benefits to humanity by compensating the coin miners for participating in BOINC projects that may lead to advances in medicine, biology, mathematics, science, climatology, and astrophysics by concentrating a large percentage of the computational power towards BOINC research - instead of generating unecessary heat and wasted power for the proof of work algorithms required to keep the coin network running.
It is estimated that bitcoin is using approximately 23,312 megawatt hours per day (see electric consumption at blockchain.info/stats (24 hour stats)) of electric for block solving algorithms.
The aim of the gridcoin project is to shift the computational power primarily to Boinc projects while the mining operations become a second priority - so as the network is scaled up, boinc utilization is scaled up in tandem.
The coin miners will be rewarded with a small token subsidy if they fail to mine boinc shares, but a much larger subsidy when mining with boinc.
This digital cryptocurrency allows instant peer to peer transactions, worldwide payments and very low processing fees. The source code is open source and allows everyone to take part in the success of the currency.
Gridcoin is based on the Bitcoin protocol but differs from Bitcoin in that it can be efficiently mined with consumer-grade hardware, therefore is not as likely to be replaced by specialized ASIC mining chips in the future.
Gridcoin provides faster transaction confirmations (2.5 minutes on average) and uses memory intensive scrypt-based proof-of-work algorithms to verify transactions.
Vital Statistics:
Algorithm: Scrypt, Re-target: 30 minutes with 2.5 min block targets, Block reward: 5-150, 5 GRC wihtout Boinc, 6-150 - receiving a calculated subsidy based on boinc utilization.
Total coins: Gridcoin is scheduled to produce 84 million currency units.
Some of the major projects that you can participate in:
Cancer research to help find cures for cancer and schizophrenia
Rosetta@Home: 3 dimensional protien modeling, HIV, Cancer, Alzheimers
World community grid: Various projects including researching strains of rice for regions where hunger is a concern World Community Grid - Rice
Malaria control
Alzheimers and Mad cow research
DNA Sequencing, Microorganism identification, Bird flu research, protien docking algorithms, molecular biology, evolution research
Nanotechnology research to find new molecular materials
Large scale protien structure prediction, understanding diseases and pathologies
Quantum chemistry
Discovery of new drugs
Microgravity and microfluid research
Search for Neutron stars
Particle accelerator research
Cryptographic research
Search for extraterrestrials
Creating better weather models, predicting the weather
