I've been into folding@home somewhat ~5 years ago, back in 2008 I believe... And I had a lot of fun helping - or, at least I thought I was helping to find a cure for all known diseases.
I had to stop though, and not because of electricity costs, not because of the noise or the heat - just because I got bored. It's like a game - you play for a little while, and then stop out of boredom. I farmed for a good 3-4 months though!
What has changed?
As of 2013, when the price of bitcoin got to almost a thousand USD per coin, a great number of people decided to get into farming cryptocurrencies, including me.
F@H was fun and all, but there is no way you could buy a video card for folding, get profits - buy another video card - get more profits - etc. But when you're farming cryptos - you CAN do that! In a way, mining cryptos allows you to increase your personal computing power almost exponentially! Well, not exactly, no, but still...! Anyways, now that I can make money off my hardware - I won't be donating my resources towards reserch. I'm poor, (no, really) and right now, sadly, in no position to donate. ): I kinda want to, honestly!
Imagine...ResearchCoin.
F@H is still going on, as far as I can tell. They changed their website design: https://folding.stanford.edu/home/ and there are still articles being posted there. It it still rather powerful, but...Imagine what would happen, if all the crypto-miners were to switch to F@H? Or similar scientific project? F@H or SETI? Maybe just for a week!
There is yet another idea - what if mining could be intertwined with research? Imagine a crypto-currency, coupled with reasearch! If you're mining a coin - you're spending some percentage of your computing power towards research, and the rest you keep for yourself in form of coins to pay your electicity bills!
Now that would be just half-useless expenditure of humanity's computing power! Maybe it would also make that kind of coin more popular than bitcoin and litecoin and all the clones? A ResearchCoin!
I probably won't even try implementing this, not in the near future. But if anyone reading this article feels the strength and has the time to do it - be my guest. Just let me know, cause I might be able to provide some assistance with coding along the way... (;
I had to stop though, and not because of electricity costs, not because of the noise or the heat - just because I got bored. It's like a game - you play for a little while, and then stop out of boredom. I farmed for a good 3-4 months though!
What has changed?
As of 2013, when the price of bitcoin got to almost a thousand USD per coin, a great number of people decided to get into farming cryptocurrencies, including me.
F@H was fun and all, but there is no way you could buy a video card for folding, get profits - buy another video card - get more profits - etc. But when you're farming cryptos - you CAN do that! In a way, mining cryptos allows you to increase your personal computing power almost exponentially! Well, not exactly, no, but still...! Anyways, now that I can make money off my hardware - I won't be donating my resources towards reserch. I'm poor, (no, really) and right now, sadly, in no position to donate. ): I kinda want to, honestly!
Imagine...ResearchCoin.
F@H is still going on, as far as I can tell. They changed their website design: https://folding.stanford.edu/home/ and there are still articles being posted there. It it still rather powerful, but...Imagine what would happen, if all the crypto-miners were to switch to F@H? Or similar scientific project? F@H or SETI? Maybe just for a week!
There is yet another idea - what if mining could be intertwined with research? Imagine a crypto-currency, coupled with reasearch! If you're mining a coin - you're spending some percentage of your computing power towards research, and the rest you keep for yourself in form of coins to pay your electicity bills!
Now that would be just half-useless expenditure of humanity's computing power! Maybe it would also make that kind of coin more popular than bitcoin and litecoin and all the clones? A ResearchCoin!
I probably won't even try implementing this, not in the near future. But if anyone reading this article feels the strength and has the time to do it - be my guest. Just let me know, cause I might be able to provide some assistance with coding along the way... (;
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