Hello again!

@geebell and myself are continuing our efforts to bring Gridcoin to the Medium audience.  We have a series of articles planned for release every fortnight.  This post is titled, "An Introduction to BOINC."  Below, you will find the link to the article along with the text.  If you have a Medium account, give us a clap and a follow to help increase our visibility.  We hope you enjoy!  Feedback is always welcome.

[Gridcoin Network Profile](https://medium.com/@gridcoinnetwork)
[An Introduction to BOINC](https://medium.com/@gridcoinnetwork/an-introduction-to-boinc-1925d5a5ee23)

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Before we begin, here are some stats from the last article:

In the two weeks since its posting, [An Introduction to Gridcoin](https://medium.com/@gridcoinnetwork/an-introduction-to-gridcoin-65fe1c0f9fc2) has received 130 views and 81 reads making a read rate of 62%.  11 fans gave it 263 claps.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.  

Now, here's the text of the just posted article.

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![boinc_logo.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmfXomNtSNqX2Mvg8dTp5M2Vd4NphkjvqbT8mzwx228SPU/boinc_logo.png)

BOINC is an open-source distributed computing infrastructure which provides anyone with the means to process data via a global volunteer based distributed computing network. It was developed out of the SETI@Home project which was publicly released in May of 1999.

<h2>History</h2>

Conceived by David Gedye and David P. Anderson with the help of Dan Werthimer, SETI@Home began by presenting raw data from the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico to volunteers who would analyze the data and return the results to a central server for rewards known as credits.

After a short while, dishonest participants began manipulating the system or submitting entirely falsified data to receive more credits. As a result, David Anderson, funded in part by the Nation Science Foundation and with the help of Oxford’s ClimatePrediction.net, began development of a stand-alone software platform that would, among other things, help combat these adversaries. The result was the BOINC software released in April of 2002.

The first entirely BOINC-based project, Predictor@home, launched in June, 2004. By August of the same year, SETI@Home and ClimatePrediction.net had launched their BOINC projects.

Development of the BOINC software was spurred forward with the help of Rom Walter, who left Microsoft to become the first full-time employee of BOINC, Charlie Fenton, also of Microsoft, and Bruce Allen, of the Einstein@home project hosted by the University of Wisconsin and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. As an open-source project, BOINC development and the BOINC community has benefited from the work of over 60 other programmers and hundreds of contributors.

<h2>Operation</h2>

BOINC consists of two main components: a project server system and client software. The project server, hosted individually by each BOINC project, stores and distributes project data to the client software run by hosts volunteering to crunch that project’s data. Once the host completes the data crunching task, known as a work unit, it returns the results to the project server. The server then archives, or otherwise handles, the results for further study or future use. Upon verification of the validity and honesty of the completed work unit, a reward in the form of BOINC credits is provided to the host which completed the task. Credits serve primarily as a proof of participation tool in BOINC’s larger gamification system.

<h2>Power</h2>

As of the publication of this article, BOINC hosts about 21 petaFLOPS of processing power per second. This is an increase from about 18 PetaFLOPS on November 2nd, 2017. For comparison, the currently top ranked supercomputer, the Sunway TaihuLight, hosts 93 petaFLOPS. The Tianhe-2 supercomputer, ranked second, hosts about 34 petaFLOPS. The Piz Daint, the third most powerful supercomputer, hosts about 20 petaFLOPS.

<h2>Results</h2>

BOINC has been used to identify pulsars, create patient specific cancer treatments, expand on our knowledge of efficient molecular combinations for solar panels, and complete countless other scientific, cryptographic, and mathematical computational tasks.

There have been at least 165 scientific papers published using results from BOINC projects. A list of these papers can be found at the link shared at the end of this section.

While BOINC has been used primarily for science and math, it can host data from any field so long as the data can be formatted for BOINC’s processes. Enigma@home, for example, works to break remaining Nazi-Germany WWII messages encrypted by the Enigma machines.

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Publications_by_BOINC_projects

<h2>The Future of BOINC</h2>

BOINC has been an ongoing project for over 15 years. Development in recent years has seen increased activity, including a new project, known as “TBD”, funded by the National Science Foundation and being developed by David Anderson. The open-source design of BOINC has also encouraged several other projects from volunteer contributors to undergo active development.

Gridcoin brings to BOINC an entirely new community energized by blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency movement and funding structures. As for what the next iteration of BOINC will look like, only time will tell.