HitBTC, one of the world’s premier digital asset exchanges, has integrated CureCoin, part of the Folding@Home distributed computing project aimed at helping out in the fight against various diseases, into its ecosystem as part of its recently launched COVID-19 initiative.
HitBTC started its initiative, offering support projects that are helping with efforts to cure and combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, at the end of March. CureCoin, the first project to be integrated as part of the exchange’s new initiative, has been specifically directing its computing power to aid research efforts in the fight against COVID-19.
Long known for its industry-leading liquidity and number of open markets, HitBTC announced their effort at the end of March in an attempt to translate some of what has made the cryptocurrency industry one of the most dynamic in the global economy into a force that can help curtail the effects of the ongoing global pandemic.
In honor of CureCoin joining the HitBTC ecosystem, HitBTC has conducted an exclusive interview with Josh Smith, CEO of CureCoin in order to fill the HitBTC community in on the details of the project.
Along with this interview, the HitBTC team has also an opportunity to speak with one of the bioinformatics researchers, who contributes to this project, and asks her about the technical details of her work. This interview can be also found on the exchange’s blog.
While CureCoin is the first project to join HitBTC via the pathway laid out by the initiative, the exchange is eager to help out as many difference-making projects as possible. In a statement on the addition of CureCoin, Peter Swen from the HitBTC marketing team said, “We started this initiative in order to help out projects that can change the world for the better right now. CureCoin and the Folding@Home project are examples of how the great pools of talent and potential in this industry can be tapped into and applied to problems facing all of us. We hope to add more projects in a similar mold as we move forward with this initiative.”
CureCoin got started in 2014 as part of the Folding@Home project. Folding@Home is an initiative backed by Stanford University that has been using a distributed computer network to collate computing power in order to study how proteins misfold themselves. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the project has prioritized research related to COVID-19.
Josh Smith, CEO at CureCoin had this to say regarding the project’s integration on to HitBTC: ”The Curecoin Team is proud to help cutting-edge COVID-19 research; in addition to our core – rewarding citizen scientists who contribute computing power to Cancer, Alzheimer’s and other Infectious Disease research on Folding@home. Having the opportunity to trade on HitBTC will give our project the added exposure needed for broad worldwide adoption.”
Projects interested in taking part in HitBTC’s ongoing COVID-19 initiative can find more details on the HitBTC blog post. HitBTC will be accepting applications through May 1.
