Gridcoin is just another pump and dump alt-coin ripoff. The people who created it and virtually every other alt-coin do so with the hope that stupid people will buy into it and raise the price thus giving the creators the opportunity to cash out.

All of the altcoin markets are so easily manipulated that it's essentially an opportunity for creators to get free cash.

Getting involved with this crap makes about as much sense as putting your money into donut hole futures.

But if you want to pick up some worthless currency and you're already volunteering for WCG, wtf. Go for it. Just don't be stupid enough to put any real money into it.

Activating wallets is something I've seen before with Ripple and Stellar. Maybe that's standard for coins that are created rather than mined like bitcoin and litecoin.

But with Ripple and Stellar, you had opportunities to get the nominal number of coins you needed to activate your wallet. For example in the case of Stellar, you got thousands of coins just for validating a facespace account. And even Ripple I think had some giveaways before they did the one with WCG.

Gridcoin is currently quoted as being about 25/100ths of a cent. So depending on how many you need to activate a wallet, that may not be a big deal. However if the payout is small, it's probably not worth it.

Personally, I wouldn't waste the effort creating a wallet and trying to keep it secure. None of these altcoins are going anywhere and that includes bitcoin.

I'll give it a pass for now but let us know you go, I'm curious what they return is! :)

Research Ponzi scheme and its variations. Early investors made out like bandits (which they usually were) and left latest investors holding the bag when the scheme collapsed.
Next look up the definition of altruism.
Cheers