Gridcoin

Last updated

Gridcoin
Gridcoin Logo.svg
Denominations
PluralGridcoins
CodeGRC
Precision10−8
Subunits
1100000000halford
Development
Original authorRob Halförd [1]
White paper Gridcoin: The Computation Power of a Blockchain Driving Science & Data Analysis
ImplementationGridcoin-Research
Latest release 5.4.9.0-leisure / February 16, 2025;9 months ago (2025-02-16) [2]
Code repository github.com/gridcoin-community/Gridcoin-Research
Development statusActive
Project fork of Bitcoin, Peercoin [3]
Written in C++
Operating system Windows, Linux, macOS
Developer Gridcoin Community
Source modelOpen source
License MIT License [3]
Ledger
Timestamping scheme Proof-of-stake
Valuation
Exchange rate USD$0.009 as of November 2025 [4]
Website
Website gridcoin.us OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Gridcoin (abbreviation: GRC) is a cryptocurrency which rewards volunteer computing performed on the BOINC platform. [1] [5] [6] [7] BOINC was originally developed to support SETI@home, [8] but has also been used for research in other areas.

Version 5.3.2.0 of the Gridcoin wallet Grc-wallet-5230.jpg
Version 5.3.2.0 of the Gridcoin wallet

Gridcoin was created on October 16, 2013, by Rob Halförd. Initially using the energy-intensive proof of work, as used by Bitcoin, Gridcoin migrated to a proof of stake protocol in 2014, similar to Peercoin, in an attempt to address the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining. [1] [9] [10]

An exploit was demonstrated in August 2017 that revealed the email addresses of Gridcoin users and allowed the theft of other users' work. [11] The research team had disclosed the vulnerability to the developers in September 2016, and a patch was released in March 2017 with version 3.5.8.7. [11] However the implementation of the fix introduced other issues. [11]

The implementation Gridcoin-Research was created as a fork of Bitcoin and Peercoin and is licensed under the MIT License. [3] It uses Qt 5 for its user interface [12] and prebuilt executables of the wallet are distributed for Windows, macOS, and Debian. [2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hijfte, Stijn Van (6 July 2020). Blockchain Platforms: A Look at the Underbelly of Distributed Platforms. Morgan & Claypool Publishers. p. 145. ISBN   9781681738925. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Releases - gridcoin-community/Gridcoin-Research" . Retrieved 15 May 2025 via GitHub.
  3. 1 2 3 "License on Github". GitHub. Archived from the original on 28 May 2023. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
  4. "Gridcoin (GRC)". CoinGecko.com. Retrieved 2025-11-21.
  5. Dong, Zhongli; Lee, Young Choon; Zomaya, Albert Y. (2015). Crowdware: A Framework for GPU-Based Public-Resource Computing with Energy-Aware Incentive Mechanism. 2015 IEEE 7th International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science. p. 266. doi:10.1109/CloudCom.2015.73. ISBN   978-1-4673-9560-1. S2CID   6852894.
  6. Kent, Peter; Bain, Tyler (2019). Cryptocurrency Mining for Dummies. Wiley. p. 320. ISBN   9781119579472.
  7. Elena Guerrero-Roldán, Ana; Baneres, David; Elena Rodriguez, M. (2020). Engineering data-driven adaptive trust-based e-assessment systems : challenges and infrastructure solutions. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. p. 144. ISBN   9783030293260.
  8. Scoles, Sarah. "A Brief History of SETI@Home". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2017-05-23. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  9. "Bitcoin mining likely uses more energy than it takes to keep New Zealand's lights on". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . 12 December 2017. Archived from the original on 8 January 2021. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  10. Kondru, Kiran Kumar; Saranya, R.; Chacko, Annamma (2021). "A Review of Distributed Supercomputing Platforms Using Blockchain". In Tripathy, Asis Kumar; Sarkar, Mahasweta; Sahoo, Jyoti Prakash; Li, Kuan-Ching; Chinara, Suchismita (eds.). Advances in Distributed Computing and Machine Learning. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems. Vol. 127. Singapore: Springer. pp. 123–133. doi:10.1007/978-981-15-4218-3_13. ISBN   978-981-15-4217-6. S2CID   224845754.
  11. 1 2 3 Grothe, Martin; Niemann, Tobias; Somorovsky, Juraj; Schwenk, Jörg (2017-08-14). "Breaking and Fixing Gridcoin" (PDF). Proceedings of the 11th USENIX Conference on Offensive Technologies. WOOT'17. United States: USENIX Association. p. 14. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  12. "Gridcoin-Research/build-unix.md at development · gridcoin-community/Gridcoin-Research". GitHub. Retrieved 21 July 2021.