Gridcoin dates back to 2013, and is one of a large number of "altcoins" that was released during Bitcoin's last price surge and bubble of media attention. It us

Gridcoin dates back to 2013, and is one of a large number of "altcoins" that was released during Bitcoin's last price surge and bubble of media attention. It uses proof of stake, which greatly decreases the computing power needed to secure the block chain -- am approach used by many other alt coins. There have been a lot of criticisms of PoS over the years, including here at HN. The most prominent being that PoS coins often use checkpoints which mean they are not truly decentralized. The "Proof of Research" seems gimmicky to me, and maybe I'm a cynic, but my impression of Gridcoin has always been that it is just another attempt to cash in and doesn't do anything particularly useful. PrimeCoin is another example from the same time period.