| | |
| Denominations | |
|---|---|
| Plural | Gridcoins |
| Code | GRC |
| Precision | 10−8 |
| Subunits | |
| 1⁄100000000 | halford |
| Development | |
| Original author | Rob Halförd [1] |
| White paper | Gridcoin: The Computation Power of a Blockchain Driving Science & Data Analysis |
| Implementation | Gridcoin-Research |
| Latest release | 5.4.9.0-leisure / February 16, 2025 [2] |
| Code repository | github |
| Development status | Active |
| Project fork of | Bitcoin, Peercoin [3] |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | Windows, Linux, macOS |
| Developer | Gridcoin Community |
| Source model | Open source |
| License | MIT License [3] |
| Ledger | |
| Timestamping scheme | Proof-of-stake |
| Valuation | |
| Exchange rate | USD$0.009 as of November 2025 [update] [4] |
| Website | |
| Website | gridcoin |
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.
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]