RE: Thoughts on GRC [002] – How the user experience could be improved (1)
"You say that there is a requirement to have high end hardware, and that this will drive new potential recruits away from the scene."
In my introduction I mentioned that the beauty of BOINC is that all systems can contribute. Yet, there is a semi-requirement often perceived as essential for efficient mining.
If you take a look at /r/gridcoin as well as other crypto subs you will notice that GRC has managed to attract a few new miners/investors - but you might also have noticed that some people suggest to only mine GRC if people really want to contribute to science. If they want to make actual profit, it is suggested to use resources to mine other coins instead.
The reason for this is, that some potential GRC miners interpret the facts wrong and/or are not told all the facts. Especially the FP64 requirement is something that supports this narrative even though we know there are no real minimum hardware requirements for BOINC/GRC.
This is what these conversations look like:
Q: "I have GPU x. Is this any good to mine GRC?"
A: "If you like science, go for it, but if you want to make real profit, this coin is a lot better."
My personal experiences with this are anecdotal, but when I started with BOINC/GRC a few weeks ago I also shared this with a lot of nerd friends who usually are willing to test out new things. Even though there is information that there are no minimum requirements, people assume there are some sort of hardware requirements for efficient GRC mining based on advice given mainly on non-GRC channels.
Another point I did not include at all is the requirement to have a minimum balance of roughly 1k GRC in order to stake and receive rewards. People see this as another obstacle that prevents them from making profit with GRC. Even though other coins might have similar restrictions, the fact that mining them is more lucrative overall is a good reason to mine those instead.
Maybe I'm mistaken about this, but it does look like a major issue to me.
What do you see the chances being of GRC being the #1 most profitable coin to mine? For that to even be a remote possibility, we need to have droves of people mining it for science first. The increased competition and rising power cost per coin mined will provide a higher price floor.
This is just honesty from the community. It is true. You said yourself the focus should not be on profit, so why should we not openly tell new members that this is not the most profitable coin? I would 100000 times rather have someone mine with clear, accurate expectations than have them leave pissed because they did not make much.
Where? I personally wrote project selection posts for generic hardware and never came across this. The perception as I have seen it is better hardware = more rewards, which is correct.
In pool mining, setup is very fast and you need no GRC to start at all.
When solo mining, you need 1 GRC to send a beacon which registers your CPID in the Neural Network. After this, holding more GRC just increases your POS rewards and thus your DPOR - you will stake more often. You need to stake once every six months at minimum to not lose POR rewards. Mag increases your DPOR too.
There is no 'minimum requirement' to get started with GRC.