Cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoin, have created hundreds of thousands of jobs. Even more, millions of individuals all over the world are currently receiving payments for their work in bitcoin. There are also numerous ways to earn some cryptocurrencies using just laptop, or a PC, and an internet connection. I bet you already know about cryptocurrency faucets and altcoin mining which are easy ways to earn a few cents worth of cryptocurrencies per day.

Throughout this article, I will introduce you to relatively uncommon ways to make some crypto using only a laptop, or a PC, and an internet connection.

Donating your Computing Power for Gridcoin:

You can earn around between 10-20 cents worth of Gridcoin per day, via donating your computing power to the Gridcoin network via only using your PC or laptop.

What is Gridcoin?

Gridcoin (GRC) is an altcoin whose blockchain is the first ever cryptocurrency protocol to deliver a math based digital algorithm that equally incentivizes and cryptographically verifies solving of BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) problems, which literally can be any form of computing process including CPU, GPU, Sencor…etc.

BOINC is a volunteer oriented, internet based computing grid that collectively combines the computing power of individual machines for various purposes of scientific research such as to map the Milky Way, attempt to find a cure for Aids, cancer, Ebola and Malaria, decipher various enigma code….etc.

How can you be rewarded with Gridcoin?

Gridcoin’s network rewards volunteers, who donate their computing power, for participating in BOINC computation processes via means of Distributed Proof of Research (DPOR) incentivizing mechanism, which is a combination of 2 mechanisms; Proof-of-BOINC (PoB) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanisms are not implemented in Gridcoin’s network, thus, Gridcoin’s blockchain is far more energy saving than cryptocurrency protocols utilizing the PoW mechanism.

Staking Gridcoin:

In PoS, you mint coins, instead of mining them. To do this, you need to own some Gridcoins in your Gridcoin wallet. To calculate your rewards, you need to know your “coin age”. Coin age is calculated by multiplying the number of coins, i.e. “the stake”, by the number of days the coins were present in the user’s wallet. For instance, if you hold 100 coins for 3 days, your coin age will equal 100 x 3 = 300.

The blocks generated in Gridcoin’s blockchain are adjusted to meet a specific annual hash target for the entire network. Accordingly, the target is continuously adjusted rather than every 2 weeks, as bitcoin’s difficulty. Gridcoin’s rate which is listed in APR’s schedule is annualized, the applied rate for coins with an APR of 1% for coins present in the wallet for one day is 1%/365

Participating in BOINC Projects For Gridcoins:

You can donate your computing power for research purposes for various projects including mapping the Milky Way, attempt to find a cure for Aids, cancer, Ebola and Malaria and other. You will be rewarded with Gridcoin for particpating in these projects.

You will have to download and install the BOINC client and Gridcoin’s wallet to be able to participate in these projects. You can find a detailed guide on how to install BOINC and setup your environment for giving away your computing power in exchange for Gridcoin on Gridcoin’s website.

I used an Intel Core i5 2.2 GHZ HP laptop, with 16 GB DDR3 SDRAM and a NIVIDIA GEFORCE 820M graphic card to experiment donating my computing power to the Gridcoin network. I made 10 cents worth of Gridcoin in around 24 hours.

Autosurfing Programs:

Autosurfing programs are website services that incentivize you for leaving your PC, or laptop, automatically surf websites. Note that many of the websites that claim to offer autosurfing rewards are scams, so only use trusted websites with good reviews and testimonials.

Bitcoin Surf has been around for a while and has excellent reviews online and is praised on bitcointalk.org. The site pays and can be an easy way to make a few thousand satoshis by just pointing your browser to bitcoin surf’s website.