In a recent Reddit ask-me-anything (AMA) Gregory Bowman, Folding@Home’s (F@H) director, revealed that the project currently has 400,000 computers actively contributing to research.
“We had about 30K users before the pandemic started,” he stated, adding: “In the past two weeks, 400K volunteers have joined Folding@home.”
The number of F@H donors has increased 1200% in four weeks
Folding@Home is a platform that diverts donations of spare computational power toward medical and scientific research. On Feb. 27, F@H announced an initiative to harness a global computer network to contribute work towards pharmaceutical drugs to combat COVID-19.
F@H also designates computing power for research into breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and epigenetics.
Crypto Endorsements Help F@H Fight Coronavirus
F@H’s boost in donations have been assisted by strong engagement from the cryptocurrency community.
Coreweave, which claims to be the largest U.S.-based Ethereum (ETH) miner, has diverted the computational power of approximately 6,000 graphics processing units (GPUs). Coreweave’s CTO estimated that the donated resources equated to 0.2% of Ethereum’s total hash rate.
In recent weeks, the F@H platform received endorsements from decentralized computing network, Golem, and blockchain platform, Tezos — who have organized a donation pool of several hundred XTZ that will be awarded to the largest F@H donor as of the end of this month. As of March 12, Tezos already had 20 teams contributing resources to the platform.
On March 14, GPU chip manufacturer Nvidia revealed that it is contributing to F@H, urging gamers to join them:
“PC Gamers, let’s put those GPUs to work. Join us and our friends at @OfficialPCMR in supporting folding@home and donating unused GPU computing power to fight against COVID-19!“