Gridcoin poll to whitelist Folding@Home (via adapter)

[Azmodes]

I hope this isn't judged to be off-topic here, but just wanted to share this for anyone interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/gridcoin/comme ... telisting/

Gridcoin (GRC) is a BOINC-based cryptocurrency somewhat comparable to CureCoin. Being able to connect one's FAH efforts to it has been a long time coming and I couldn't be more excited. Here's to this getting a lot of new people folding.

If anyone here is already mining Gridcoin, I would encourage them to cast their vote, as this poll needs an AVW of at least 40%. Cheers!

[jamescowens]

I am the lead core developer for Gridcoin. I want to ensure that folks know that when the on-chain poll completes (it is eight weeks in duration), if the whitelisting is approved, Gridcoin will reward folks that have valid beacons (CPIDs) on the Gridcoin network and use a username that follows the naming guidelines discussed in the Reddit post. Note that all questions concerning basic operation of the Folding@home client rightfully should go here, but all questions relating to Gridcoin or the connection between the Folding@home client and Gridcoin should be addressed to Gridcoin. Please see https://gridcoin.us/ and the links on the community page. We have a Discord server which should be the first place to go for support on the #help channel.

[jamescowens]

Just wanted to post an update on the Gridcoin whitelisting. The poll will finish later today, and we have overwhelming approval by the community to include Folding@Home as an approved project for reward. Note that we have been testing this on Gridcoin testnet for several months so we expect this to be smooth. The addition of Folding@Home as an approved project for award will occur shortly after the expiration of the poll, which is 01-14-2023 18:58:18 UTC. Note that it will be 21 hours after that before the network produces a superblock which encodes Folding@Home as a valid project with magnitudes.

[BobWilliams757]

Some suggestions if either of you is still watching for input.....

I'd start a unique thread with some clarification about the role of F@H as it related to the Gridcoin. Make it clear what the F@H policy is on the effort (usually that they neither endorse nor discourage such use) and how it's not intended to have any negative impact on folding efforts. Then list the direct support links for those with questions that related to the payouts, setup, etc that are unique to the Gridcoin.

I think clarification of F@H demands is also a good idea. Without altering installations or preferences, F@H can tax a system much harder, using both a great deal of CPU and/or GPU resources. Power consumption for those with capable systems can be high is someone is set up to fold for maximum points, especially those that have powerful GPU's. Those with unstable systems will find the flaws quickly in most cases, and it's not uncommon to see people claiming F@H software or execution is flawed and that is the problem. In reality the problem is that many people don't have stable systems and taking the time to ensure they stay that way.



This is input from just another folder, I'm not connected to any staff or official F@H representative. But I've seen a lot of posts about people wanting those here in this forum to answer all their questions about the various coins, why they haven't been paid, why their system works on BOINC and not here, etc, etc. People here are willing to help with the usual F@H setup questions, help them with specific setups and other such things. But having a single thread that people could copy/paste to point them in the proper direction of those questions related to the Gridcoin rather than folding side of the questions would maybe save people a lot of time and typing.

[jamescowens]

Some good suggestions Bob. Many folks coming to F@H are experienced BOINC crunchers and already have Gridcoin set up. These folks are also familiar with the hardware requirements of distributed computing, as many of the BOINC projects have similar demands on the CPU and GPU to F@H.

We also have F@H participants who are interested in Gridcoin, and then finally we have brand new folks who are complete "newbies".

We are modifying the Gridcoin guides to include F@H setup and will be linking those on our main site. We are already fielding a number of questions on our Discord server #help channel.

Where would be the best place to create the thread for best visiibility?

P.S. I completely agree about the test of system stability with intensive distributed computing. We see this quite a bit in BOINC too, and also the Gridcoin client is sensitive to machine problems, because it does hash checking of just about all critical data structures, so detects memory problems that are subtle and would not normally be seen. Don't get me started about the lack of ECC RAM for almost all consumer PC's.

[BobWilliams757]

Looks like you beat me to it... I was going to suggest here unless one of the admins had a better idea.

You seem to have things covered fairly well, and I saw in the links to your other post that you had already reached out to F@H. This will just save us some time if people come here asking for help on the coin setups and such. It seems with other projects that it often comes in waves, why I don't know.

People here are always willing to help with the folding specific side of things, and most people with some computer savvy and/or patience and ability to follow helpful directions do fine. As for the ones that struggle, probably neither help at Gridcoin or F@H will help them.

[toTOW]

Where would be the best place to create the thread for best visibility?

Not on the Folding Forums.

The Folding Forums are to support people who are willing to run the Folding@Home software or to learn more about science done on the project.

Mentioning crytocurrencies here is tolerated, but it must be limited to that.

People are smart enough to find support about them at their own websites on their own.

One thread letting people that it exists is sufficient.

[BobWilliams757]

Just for clarification, the unique thread was a suggestion made by me.

I've seen enough of the posts explaining other coin type things where I thought it would save forum members time and all the appropriate resources to the Gridcoin stuff would be in one location that was easy to link the newbies to. No drama intended if it ruffled some feathers.

[jamescowens]

I have asked the mod to relink the post here. Hopefully that will be done. I put some effort into the post.

[cloud7896]

I have asked the mod to relink the post here. Hopefully that will be done. I put some effort into the post.

If you need a copy of the old post, it can be seem in Internet Archive.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230120013 ... hp?t=38983

[toTOW]

I have asked the mod to relink the post here. Hopefully that will be done. I put some effort into the post.

I PMed you a copy of the post text and bbcode. This is a perfect tutorial to be posted on the Gridcoin website.

If someone is asking about this on the Folding Forums, he will get the usual answer (which is also a pinned post in FAH Discord) :

If you're looking for payment or anything related to a cryptocurrency, you wouldn't find anything on the Folding At Home website because the Cryptocurrencies are not official from the makers of Folding At Home. You need to go to the sites of the cryptocurrencies that you get for FAH and ask there.
We don't do the support for the crypto stuff here.