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FoldingCoin: Mining in the Name of Science
Protein folding is central to healthy biological processes and protein misfolding is known to cause medical conditions like Cancer and Alzheimer's. Stanford University started the Folding@home project (FAH) in October 2000. The project provides software that runs computational algorithms that simulate the way protein molecules fold in the body, allowing scientists to use the output from the computers running the FAH software on their research. Despite being extremely useful in the fight against these diseases, the Folding@home project only offers symbolic credits that hold no value, which can be seen as less than optimal considering the electricity costs that can be associated with these computational tasks.
Mine Medicine, Not Hashes – This is the motto of FoldingCoin (FLDC), a counterparty asset issued on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. FoldingCoin uses "Proof of Fold" to distribute assets to users that, instead of "wasting" energy maintaining a Proof of Work blockchain, contribute to the Folding@Home project. This allows users to mine a cryptocurrency, regardless of their hardware, be it CPU or GPU they can both be used to contribute to protein folding research, although ASIC folding would require the miner to acquire an Anton SuperComputer which is the ASIC that is used for protein folding.
Being an asset on the Bitcoin blockchain has the advantage of not having to build an alternative blockchain which does not contribute to the project at all, and would require extra development and maintenance, as well as a new wallet interface.
FLDC tokens are distributed monthly. Public statistics file lists every folder on the network and the credits they have been awarded at the time the file was produced. This file is then downloaded by the FoldingCoin snapshot code that searches the file to find the folders that have set their folding software up according to the instructions provided by FoldingCoin Inc.
There is a total supply of 1 billion FLDC that are distributed according to a half-life schedule:
• Once 500,000,000 FLDC are distributed, daily reward becomes 250,000 FLDC
• Once 750,000,000 FLDC are distributed, daily reward becomes 125,000 FLDC
• Once 875,000,000 FLDC are distributed, daily reward becomes 62,500 FLDC And so on.
• This halving occurs every 1,000 days
Anyone can join the FoldingCoin project and earn coins while helping the fight against Cancer, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's by following the instructions in this video: