IMPORTANT NOTICE
To solo mine, you must have enough Gridcoin to stake and earn rewards. You should have enough Gridcoin to stake about once every month, which is around 5000 GRC. Consider following the pool mining guide if you do not have 5000 GRC
Don't Want BOINC rewards?
Switch to the Non-Cruncher guide. You do not need to install or run BOINC in order to use GRC as a cryptocurrency.
BOINC Introduction
To earn Gridcoin, you need to crunch whitelisted BOINC projects. You must install the BOINC client and select several BOINC projects.
For getting Gridcoin, see step 3. You can also start out by pool mining, which needs no Gridcoin to get rewards.
BOINC video introductions:
Install BOINC
Go to the BOINC website, download and install BOINC for any computer you want to run BOINC on. If you don't have projects that use VirtualBox, BOINC+VirtualBox is not needed.
Choose Projects on the Whitelist
Sources of whitelist data
- Gridcoin Wallet
- Gridcoin.us Whitelist page
- Gridcoinstats.eu
Project Selection Tips
- Choose projects with least competition. Use tools such as Gridcoinstats to help identify such projects.
- Select projects most compatible with your computer hardware, don't crunch GPU work with a CPU.
- Verify your projects have enough work available, you don't want downtime for projects to generate new work.
- Have a backup project in case your primary project runs out of work or goes down.
Pros and Cons of Account Managers
- Choose and follow the instructions for your choice
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Use an Account Manager:
- Single Sign On: One password for BOINC to remember.
- Manage computer resources & configuration from one location.
- Manage all BOINC projects from one management portal online.
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Disadvantages:
- Single Sign On: If your account manager's credentials are compromised, then all of your BOINC project accounts will be compromised.
No Account Manager Setup
- After starting BOINC, select the "add a project" button.
- After clicking "Next" choose a project.
- For some projects (such as World Community Grid) you have to register directly on the homepage of the project. Remember to use the same email address for all BOINC projects.
- Confirm the registration. After tapping the "Finish" button, a browser should open. If not, go to the project homepage (can be found via Google). Find the “Your Account” button and press it.
- Within the web page, enter your username (country/post-code can be blank) then press OK.
- (optional) Search for and join team "Gridcoin" or a team of your choice.
- Repeat these steps for all projects you want to participate in.
BOINC Account Manager Setup
- Create a BAM! account here.
- Wait for the activation mail, and activate your account.
- Login to BAM! (the login box is at the top-right of this page).
- Go to "Sign-up for projects" in the BAM! menu and click the "Create account" icon for every project you want to join.
- Go to "My projects" in the BAM! menu and select the projects that you want all your new hosts to attach to by clicking the "Attach new host by default" icon.
- Attach your BOINC client to BAM!. The instructions are here.
- The client will make two connections to BAM!. It will connect to projects that are set to default attach.
- Configure BAM! to your liking. Read the F.A.Q. for details.
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(optional) Joining a team:
- Go to the Team page.
- For each project, tick the checkbox in the 3rd column.
- Click the green "Change/Join team" button at the bottom of the list of projects.
- Enter whatever team you want such as "Gridcoin" in the popup text field & click the "Search" button.
- Select that team in each dropdown menu & click the green "Change/join team" button.
- Click the orange "back to overview" button.