BitBOINC

BitBOINC
BitBOINC project banner
Project
Status	Active
Category	Cryptography, astrophysics, astronomy, citizen science, data preservation
Compute	CPU & GPU
Development
Developer	Alperen Yavuz
Author	Alperen Yavuz
Maintainer	Alperen Yavuz
Initial release	September 28, 2026  (0 years ago)
Completed	No
Repository	https://github.com/alplix (public repositories)
Software
Written in	C, C++, Rust, Kotlin, Python
Operating system	Windows, Linux, macOS, Android
BOINC statistics
Stats as of	November 7, 2026  (0 years ago)
Performance	220.563 TFLOPS
Active users	188
Total users	191
Active hosts	1,007
Total hosts	1,028
Metadata
Website	https://bitboinc.athena.org.tr/
License	Mixed (varies by application)

BitBOINC is a BOINC volunteer computing project that uses donated processor and graphics-processor time for several independent activities. It began with searches for the keys to selected Bitcoin puzzle addresses and has expanded into cryptography, astronomy, environmental monitoring, web preservation, and computer telemetry. Its applications include Skia, a beta search for possible dark-matter substructure in gravitational lenses. BitBOINC is part of the Athena network and is operated by Alperen Yavuz.

The Bitcoin searches are not Bitcoin mining: they do not produce blocks or create new coins. Instead, they target public challenges whose private keys were deliberately placed in known numerical ranges. Proposals for handling any recovered funds have been a subject of discussion among volunteers.

History

BitBOINC was publicly announced on 28 September 2026, with applications and platform builds to be introduced in stages. On 29 September the project said its first two searches, Potamos and Keraunos, were active and announced support for several CPU and GPU platforms. Sphinx, a search for a Certicom elliptic-curve challenge, was announced the same day. Kampylos, the first astronomy application, was announced on 30 September.

Nostos and Phygas were announced on 9 October 2026. Planodia, Yarrow, Mnemosyne and Thermopsis followed as the project broadened its work. On 27 October, the project deposited the Phygas stage 1 catalogue and a verification analysis plan on Zenodo.

A public repository for Skia appeared on 5 November 2026. By 7 November, the project status page listed Skia as a beta application.

Research and applications

As of 7 November 2026, the status page listed 13 applications, including Planodia Deep, a second-pass search, and Faros, a general test application. Availability, operating-system support and work queues vary by application.

Application	Area	Task
Potamos	Cryptography	Sequential Bitcoin puzzle key search
Keraunos	Cryptography	Bounded discrete-logarithm search for Bitcoin puzzles
Sphinx	Cryptography	Certicom elliptic-curve challenge
Kampylos	Astrophysics	Binary-lens microlensing modelling
Nostos	Astrophysics	Tracing interstellar objects back past Gaia stars
Phygas	Astrophysics	Possible birth clusters of runaway stars and pulsars
Planodia	Astronomy	Transit search in TESS light curves
Planodia Deep	Astronomy	Further transit searches after masking a first signal
Skia	Astrophysics	Beta search for dark-matter subhaloes in Euclid lens images
Yarrow	Citizen science	Background radiation monitoring
Mnemosyne	Data preservation	Archive Team Warrior sessions
Thermopsis	Hardware telemetry	Computer temperatures and power use
Faros	Infrastructure	Testing and development

Bitcoin puzzles: Potamos and Keraunos

The Bitcoin puzzle series uses private keys intentionally restricted to progressively larger intervals. For puzzle number $n$, the private key $k$ is in the range

$2^{n-1}\le k<2^n.$

The interval width therefore doubles with each successive puzzle. These are challenge searches, not an attempt to mine Bitcoin blocks.

Potamos scans disjoint ranges of candidate keys sequentially. In simplified terms, a candidate key is used to calculate the corresponding public point $P=kG$ on Bitcoin's elliptic curve; the public key is then hashed and compared with the target address hash. Potamos does not require the target public key to have been exposed. The server assigns chunks and independently checks reported matches. Its public repository describes the method but does not contain the optimized solver or searched-range records.

Keraunos applies Pollard's kangaroo algorithm to puzzles whose public keys are known. For an interval of width $w$, the method has expected complexity of roughly $O(\sqrt{w})$ group operations, under the usual assumptions. Volunteers run walks and report distinguished points, which the server compares for useful collisions. The repository documents the design but withholds the optimized implementation and accumulated search state. The project's puzzle progress page reports aggregate progress rather than publishing exact searched subranges.

Sphinx

Sphinx applies a distributed kangaroo search to the Certicom ECC Challenge rather than to a Bitcoin address. Its target, ECCp-131, asks for a number $k$ relating two published points by $Q=kP$. The challenge does not involve a Bitcoin wallet.

A historical Certicom document lists a US$20,000 prize for ECCp-131. BitBOINC says it has not independently confirmed whether the historical prizes are still honoured, so volunteers should not assume a payout is guaranteed.

Kampylos

A gravitational lens can change the apparent brightness of a background source. Kampylos models the more complicated case of a lens with two masses.

Kampylos models binary-lens gravitational microlensing, in which light from a distant star is bent by two foreground masses. The application compares models with archival light curves from surveys including OGLE and MOA. Rather than retaining only one best fit, it produces a grid of solutions so that alternative explanations can be examined.

The grid includes lens separation $s$, in Einstein-radius units, and mass ratio $q$. For observations $F_i$ with uncertainties ${\sigma }_i$, a model can be evaluated using

${\chi }^2(\theta )=\sum _i\frac{[F_i-F_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{l}}(t_i;\theta ){]}^2}{{\sigma }_i^2}.$

Different parameter combinations can produce similar light curves, making a map of possible solutions useful. The solver uses VBMicrolensing. The project's dataset index warns that older datasets use natural logarithms in columns whose names suggest base-10 logarithms; later datasets identify their grid convention.

On 7 November 2026, the index listed 225 openly published datasets, with one DOI per event: 126 from MOA and 99 from OGLE-IV. Dataset publication does not by itself establish a new planet discovery.

Nostos

1I/'Oumuamua, imaged in 2017. Nostos searches for possible past stellar encounters of known interstellar objects.

Nostos traces the paths of 1I/'Oumuamua, 2I/Borisov and 3I/ATLAS backward through a model of the Milky Way, alongside stars measured by Gaia. A close, slow encounter may identify a star worth further investigation as a possible origin, but it does not prove that the object formed there.

The search uses Gaia DR3 stars with three-dimensional position and velocity information and samples uncertainty in the object's orbit. Its minimum-separation calculation can be written as

$d_{\min }=\underset{t}{\min }\Vert {\mathbf{𝐫}}_{\mathrm{o}\mathrm{b}\mathrm{j}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{c}\mathrm{t}}(t)-{\mathbf{𝐫}}_{\mathrm{s}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}}(t)\Vert .$

The project reports encounters within 50 parsecs and compares two independent volunteer results for each task. Older encounters are less certain because errors accumulate over time. As of 7 November 2026, the project page described the catalogue searches for all three objects as complete; the listed encounters remained candidates requiring further checks. The separate project Gaia@home also uses Gaia data.

Phygas

Artist's impression of Gaia. Phygas and Nostos use stellar measurements from Gaia data releases.

Phygas looks for possible birth clusters of runaway stars and pulsars by tracing their paths backward through the Galaxy. Its first stellar screening covered 33,162,595 Gaia DR3 stars and 4,087 young clusters and moving groups. The search also includes pulsars with measured proper motions and distances.

The stellar screening retains possible passages according to the estimated probability $p_{r50}$ of passing within a cluster's half-mass radius. For pulsars, whose radial velocities are generally unknown, the project samples possible velocities. These are screening results, not proof that an object was born in a particular cluster: chance alignments and measurement uncertainty must be considered. Phygas has published an analysis plan for chance-alignment controls and measurement-error repeats, together with its raw catalogue and individual pulsar datasets. Einstein@Home is another BOINC project with pulsar-related research.

Planodia and Planodia Deep

NASA's TESS spacecraft separates from its launch vehicle in 2018. Planodia searches TESS light curves.

Planodia searches TESS light curves for repeating dips that could be caused by a planet passing in front of its star. In a simple uniform-disc approximation, the fractional loss of light is

$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F}{F}\approx {\left(\frac{R_p}{R_{\star }}\right)}^2,$

where $R_p$ and $R_{\star }$ are the planet and star radii. Real signals can also arise from eclipsing stars, blended sources or instrumental effects.

The application uses a box-least-squares search and records strong periodic signals. Planodia Deep masks the strongest signal and repeats the search for additional signals. Two volunteers compute each task and the results are compared. On 7 November 2026, the project page reported 48,906,535 light curves searched and 45 of 55 sectors completed. Automated candidates require follow-up before they can be identified as planets.

Skia

Artist's impression of the Euclid telescope. Skia analyses public Euclid images of candidate gravitational lenses.

Skia (Greek for "shadow") is a beta application looking for possible dark-matter subhaloes in images of strong gravitational lenses from the European Space Agency's Euclid telescope. A foreground galaxy can bend the light of a more distant galaxy into arcs. A small mass near an arc could introduce an additional distortion.

Skia fits a smooth model to each image, then adds a model subhalo at a grid of positions and strengths and refits the other parameters. It records the change in goodness of fit,

$\mathrm{\Delta }{\chi }^2={\chi }_{\mathrm{s}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{h}}^2-{\chi }_{\mathrm{w}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{b}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{o}}^2.$

A larger value means the model with a subhalo fits better, but is not automatically a detection. The repository describes public Euclid Quick Release 1 visible-light cutouts, an elliptical power-law lens with external shear, and a truncated Navarro-Frenk-White model for the added subhalo. The documented beta build is for Linux x86-64, uses one CPU thread and requires two matching volunteer results for acceptance.

The project's own feasibility report cautions that structure in real image residuals can also produce large improvements. Its tests did not establish an operational detection threshold or a reliable subhalo mass limit. The scanned strength is an angular lensing parameter, not a directly measured mass; the report states that the supplied inputs lack the redshift and calibration information needed for a mass conversion. Skia's beta results are therefore exploratory, not confirmed dark-matter detections.

Yarrow

Yarrow is an opt-in radiation-monitoring application. It reads supported Geiger counters, groups measurements into ten-minute bins and contributes to a city-level map of natural background radiation. The repository lists the FNIRSI GC-03 with Yarrow firmware, legacy Radioactive@Home USB counters, and supported GQ GMC devices. The project says it shares a volunteer's city rather than a more precise location. Yarrow Hub is a separate desktop program that can also be used without BOINC.

Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne helps preserve websites by running the Archive Team Warrior in a container. The project describes four-hour sessions that use a volunteer's computing resources and internet connection, with work credited to Archive Team under the BitBoinc nickname. It is opt-in: websites contacted by the worker can see the volunteer's IP address, and material being archived may be unpleasant. The project documents the Docker or Podman and virtualization requirements.

Thermopsis and Faros

Thermopsis is an opt-in Linux telemetry application for x86-64 and ARM64 computers. It reads available sensors once a minute and sends summaries every ten minutes. Depending on the hardware, these can include temperatures, power use, fan speeds and throttling. Its repository publishes source for inspection under a proprietary licence.

Faros is the project's general test and development application. The project warns that its experimental tasks can fail more often and that task duration and credit may change.

Source code and repositories

The developer publishes application repositories on GitHub. Their contents and licences differ: a public repository is not necessarily an open-source release of the complete production application. Potamos, Keraunos and Sphinx publish design and safety documentation while withholding their optimized solvers. Thermopsis and Skia also state their own licence terms.

Component	Repository	Contents
Potamos	alplix/potamos	Search and safety documentation
Keraunos	alplix/keraunos	Search and safety documentation
Sphinx	alplix/sphinx	Challenge and search documentation
Kampylos	alplix/kampylos	Microlensing solver and methods
Nostos	alplix/nostos	Orbit integration and search methods
Phygas	alplix/phygas	Stellar and pulsar search code and methods
Planodia	alplix/planodia	Transit-search applications and data preparation
Skia	alplix/skia	Lens fitter, scanner, tests and feasibility reports
Yarrow	alplix/yarrow	Firmware, monitor, desktop application and documentation
Thermopsis	alplix/thermopsis	Linux monitor and sensor tools
Android client	alplix/bitboinc-android	Dedicated BitBOINC Android interface

Scientific publications

BitBOINC has made a research plan, technical reports and datasets publicly available. A search of the available project, repository and Zenodo sources as of 7 November 2026 did not identify a peer-reviewed results paper produced by BitBOINC. The items below are useful research outputs, but a preregistration, software report or dataset should not be mistaken for a peer-reviewed journal article.

Project research plan and technical reports

• Yavuz, Alperen (27 October 2026). Analysis plan (pre-registration): chance-alignment and measurement-error verification of the Phygas stage-1 screening. Zenodo. The plan specifies 20 chance-alignment controls and 20 measurement-error repeats. It was written before those verification runs were inspected, although it discloses an earlier real run and pilot control. The journal named in the record is a planned venue, not evidence of acceptance or publication.
• Skia: P2 scan feasibility report. A project technical report on injection tests, residual structure and limitations of the current lens-search prototype. It is not presented as a peer-reviewed journal paper.

For the Phygas aggregate test, the preregistered empirical one-sided probability is

$p=\frac{1+\mathrm{\#}\{k:T(K_k)\ge T(R)\}}{21},$

where $R$ is the real catalogue, $K_k$ are the 20 controls and $T$ is the specified aggregate count. The minimum possible value with 20 controls is $1/21\approx 0.048$. The plan also specifies cluster-level tests and false-discovery-rate control.

Open datasets

• Phygas stage 1 catalogue: raw screening results for 33,162,595 stars and 4,087 young clusters and moving groups. The record explicitly warns that its probabilities are screening statistics and that known members and chance alignments are included.
• Phygas pulsar datasets: individual pulsar encounter results with links to their Zenodo records. For example, PSR J0255-5304 has its own DOI.
• Planodia sector 25 and sector 26: raw transit-search results and candidate tables. These are automated signals, not confirmed planet discoveries.
• Kampylos event datasets: individual binary-lens grid-search maps. One example is OGLE-2019-BLG-0972.

Related research

The following paper provides background to Skia's research area; it is not a BitBOINC publication:

• O'Riordan, Conor M.; Despali, Giulia; Vegetti, Simona; Lovell, Mark R.; Moliné, Ángeles (2023). Sensitivity of strong lensing observations to dark matter substructure: a case study with Euclid. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. doi:10.1093/mnras/stad650. This independent study forecasts subhalo sensitivity for simulated Euclid-like observations; its forecasts are not a calibration of Skia's beta pipeline.

Volunteer computing

Volunteers install BOINC, add https://bitboinc.athena.org.tr/ as a project, and choose their application and resource preferences. The project says that if it is not listed in BOINC Manager, volunteers can select Grid Computing and enter the URL manually.

The project has announced CPU support for Windows, Linux, macOS and Android, plus GPU support through CUDA, OpenCL and Apple Metal on suitable applications and devices. This does not mean that every application is available on every platform. A dedicated Android interface provides task, device and project information while using the BOINC client.

At 18:55 UTC on 7 November 2026, the status page reported 220,562.7 GFLOPS, approximately 220.563 TFLOPS, with 188 users and 1,007 computers having recent credit. It listed 191 users and 1,028 computers with credit overall. These are time-specific project-reported figures, not a count of all registered accounts or devices. Volunteers may opt to be named in research outputs or remain anonymous; Zenodo records credit both named and anonymous contributors.

Security and proposed handling of puzzle proceeds

The project says that its ordinary computational applications read work packets and write results in the BOINC slot directory, with communications handled by BOINC. These are the operator's design statements; the optimized code for the three cryptographic searches is not published in their documentation repositories. Mnemosyne has a different task model involving web requests from the volunteer's internet connection.

For a found Bitcoin puzzle key, the project describes immediate RSA-4096 encryption with OAEP padding, offline custody of the decryption key, and manual verification and transfer rather than an automatic transaction. The About page proposes allocations to project operation, science, environmental protection and volunteers; it describes a contribution-weighted random drawing for the volunteer share. A September forum post instead discussed a later contribution-weighted community vote on the distribution. These are published proposals, not evidence of a completed payout.

Community and related projects

The operator reported that Free-DC delisted BitBOINC on its launch day. Forum discussion also raised concerns about volunteer computing for valuable cryptocurrency puzzles and about trusting a future distribution of any proceeds. These are participants' views, rather than findings about a completed payout.

The Puzzle is a separate BOINC project launched on 30 October 2026 to search Bitcoin puzzle 71. Its published rules describe a different prize-sharing arrangement, including a volunteer allocation based on valid credit. It is not a BitBOINC application.

See also

• BOINC projects
• The Puzzle
• Kryptos@Home
• PrimeGrid
• Gaia@home
• Einstein@Home
• MilkyWay@home
• Universe@Home
• BlackHoles@Home
• SETI@home
• World Community Grid
• Volunteer computing
• Gravitational lens
• Euclid space telescope
• Dark matter

External links

• BitBOINC home page
• About BitBOINC
• Project status
• Bitcoin puzzle progress
• Kampylos datasets
• Nostos progress
• Phygas progress
• Phygas pulsar datasets
• Planodia progress
• Skia progress
• Yarrow status
• Mnemosyne web archiving
• Thermopsis measurements
• BitBOINC developer's GitHub repositories