September 8, 2018
By Ivan Tuma
Charity Division Director
Recently we asked our followers on Twitter:
“What makes Curecoin a challenge to explain to colleagues, friends & family?
We hope the following can help quickly answer these questions when attempting to explain our concept to others…
- Why a Hybrid profit/non-profit?
- What does it accomplish?
- Scientific Accomplishments of [email protected]
- Commercial Costs of Folding vs Distributed Computing
- Folding vs Mining vs PoS?
- “I’ll buy when it *Hits*”
Hybrid Organizations?
Our business model focuses on Social Entrepreneurship – helping accelerate research that was once only in the realm of voluntary activity (supporting [email protected]). We created a Secure Tokenized Incentive with the goal of linking vendors (including our own company store) with our Rewarded Giving model.
Rewarded Giving allows [email protected] protein folding participants, like you, to use our tokens for P2P transactions such as the purchase of products and services OR to donate them to several great causes. This even allows corporations, schools, social clubs and institutes to do the same thing via our Folding Clubs concepts…
“In recent years, Social entrepreneurs have taken the hybrid model to a new level, crafting it into what is in effect a single structure that can operate as both a for-profit and a nonprofit.” – Stanford Social Innovation Review
Some examples of companies with ethical hybrid structures include:
- Starbucks
- Toms Shoes
- Triodos Bank
What Does it Accomplish?
When you participate in [email protected] with us, OR simply purchase CureCoins, you are supporting research! Over 150 scientific papers related to [email protected] cited in over 3700 related works – part of a broader 27,000 citations outside of Stanford referencing the work of Pande Labs (Dr. Vijay Pande P.I.). We’re helping scientists (not just at Stanford) to accelerate the search for cures in cancer, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and infectious disease by simulating over 12,000 related protein configurations EVERY DAY! For more information on what protein folding is, and where it currently fits into the FDA drug approval process – check out our 2016 Focus on Science article…
Thanks to the participation of people like you, the Curecoin Team (in collaboration with Foldingcoin via Merge-Folding) is the most powerful Distributed Computing Team in the world, on the most powerful supercomputing network in the world – Stanford’s [email protected]!
So why not just pay for supercomputer time? Why all the layers of PC’s in Distributed Computing Networks, blockchains, folding clubs, etc.? What are these computations actually worth? This has been a long standing question that we will try to answer as simplistically as possible. What makes funding difficult comes from the fact that protein folding research is still somewhat exploratory (That said, thanks to AI and Deep Learning, scientists are uncovering new ways to predict protein behaviours).
Even though protein molecules are simulated on computers, they do require a certain level of “brute force” computation to explore their permutations (or intermediate states). This level of detail would be nearly impossible to produce via physical experimental methods alone. The extensive exploration required, and sometimes uncertain outcomes part of the “protein folding problem” appear to be difficult to fund when NIH funding is still below 2003 levels when adjusted for inflation, and grants have become increasingly politicized. It’s a wonder why computational biology (like [email protected]) via citizen science remains underappreciated as a global phenomenon.
We can look at the break-even costs, not the value of the discoveries themselves. At its peak in 2016, the [email protected] network produced 50,000 “Native” TeraFLOPS worth of computations per day. The Curecoin team, with FoldingCoin’s help via merge-folding, have produced over 50% of those computational cycles. This is the equivalent of one and a half $97 million IBM Titan supercomputers running nominally at 17,590 TeraFLOPS each (total of ~25,000 TeraFLOPS), using 8.2 MW of power each (total power consumption of 12.3 MW).
1. At recently peak levels, the Curecoin/FoldingCoin team collaboration would cost the following using supercomputers on a monthly basis:
Monthly payment for one and a half Titans (amortized over 10 years at 5% APR)………………………$1,543,253
Monthly power consumption for three Titans (24.6 MW at $0.10 US per kWH)…………………………. $885,600Monthly cost for computations produced using one and a half supercomputers ……………………… $2,428,853
Cost to produce a combined Curecoin/Foldingcoin using supercomputers …………………………… $21 per merged tokens
2. Using the same criteria, the Curecoin/FoldingCoin team collaboration would cost the following using Amazon AWS Cloud service on a monthly basis:
Monthly estimated cost for producing ~25,000 native TeraFLOPS using AWS g3.4xlarge instances …. $931,464
Cost to produce a combined Curecoin/Foldingcoin using AWS cloud instances ………………………. $8 per merged tokens
3. Using the same criteria, the Curecoin/FoldingCoin team collaboration would cost the following using [email protected]’s distributed computing model.
Using ~2500 individual PC’s with one nVidia GTX 1080Ti GPU each (using linear depreciation and $0.10 US per kWH):
Monthly estimated cost for producing ~25,000 native TeraFLOPS using individual PC’s ……………… $27,857
Cost to produce a combined Curecoin/Foldingcoin using districtuted individual PCs ………………… $0.24 per merged tokens
Folding vs PoW vs PoS
Curecoin uses over 80% less energy than most Bitcoin-based blockchains …
… since the vast majority of computational power on our network is directed towards protein folding research (Coins are reserved for protein folders and automatically paid out via a dedicated “folding pool” Cryptobullionpools).
Less than 20% of the power is needed to secure the network via a combined Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and traditional Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining (with near-term plans to migrate to a Certificate-based pure Proof-ofStake (PoS) system to eliminate the need for all ASIC mining).
I’ll buy CURE when it “Hits”
We hear this line of thinking all the time … but it misses a key points of what gives Curecoin its value. Curecoin is unlike most tokens; here are some reasons to consider why adding CURE tokens to your crypto portfolio is a great idea:
- Unlike bitcoin, where increased mining competition merely over-secures the network – increased competition among Curecoin network participants actually makes each “token” represent MORE research !!! This is something the markets have yet to discover.
- Buying Curecoins actually increases competition and thus research contributions to cancer, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, various Infectious diseases, and even Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning and Cloud computing research relating to computational biology.
- Unlike most crypto-currencies, Curecoin doesn’t require any special equipment to mine (esp. via protein folding). Even a ten year old laptop PC or Apple Mac can contribute to research, and qualify to win prizes via our Folding Club.
- Curecoins can be viewed through the lens of Carbon Offsets for Bitcoin mining.
Please don’t hesitate to connect with us on Discord, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter, Charity Twitter … or email me your questions (contact link above).
Edit 09/09/2018: Added link regarding NIH funding trend
Edit 09/10/2018: Added broader references and links to [email protected]
Edit 09/12/2018: Updated TeraFLOPs figures
