No.

Solo has a goal of eliminating the economic incentives that lead to network centralization. Masternodes and/or staking make sense for some projects, but are not in line with this project's goals.

Not sure how old your i5 is and how many cores it has, but my 2 year old laptop with a dual core i7 gets ~1.9kH/s, with the network at ~700kH/s that is enough for about 4 blocks a day.

not sure what would cause that but you can sync the whole blockchain in solod without bootstrapping.

ask in the discord, someone will help you troubleshoot. Discord: https://discord.gg/K62KCcm

its an executable, after you have solod running you can open solo-wallet-cli.exe. Only a command line wallet available at this time, visual/web/mobile wallets are on the near term road map.

This is a privacy coin 

This is a fair assessment right now. If you have any ideas to help us become more new miner friendly let us know in the discord. https://discord.gg/K62KCcm

Join us in the discord, a loose collective of about 30 of us have been hashing away and getting the chain stable. The first 88,000 blocks had a reduced reward. https://discord.gg/K62KCcm

BLK
GRC
XRP

I think the lack of response was more to do with awareness than enthusiasm!!!  Very interested in a mutually beneficial relationship.  Most action takes place on our official forum https://cryptocointalk.com/forum/464-gridcoin-grc/.  I'll keep an eye peeled for more information and added you on my Twitter.

Alicea you have a lot of questions that can probably be answered by reading the wiki:

wiki.gridcoin.us

Most of the discussion takes place at https://cryptocointalk.com/forum/464-gridcoin-grc/
There are many knowledgeable and helpful team members who read and post information their daily.

Documentation is a weakness that we are addressing, currently the wiki is the most up to date and complete single source about everything Gridcoin, both the Classic wallet in retirement and the new Research wallet.  A white paper is being worked on and the website will be updated soon.

As for your question about credits I think these FAQ's might answer:
http://wiki.gridcoin.us/FAQ#Is_it_true_that_someone_would_not_lose_reward_if_blocks_are_created_on_a_fork.3F
http://wiki.gridcoin.us/FAQ#Is_it_possible_to_join_a_pool.3F
http://wiki.gridcoin.us/FAQ#I_use_BOInC_with_one_username_but_on_a_few_machines_-_is_it_enough_to_have_one_wallet_with_the_proper_boinc_project_email_address.2C_or_do_I_have_to_have_a_separate_wallet_on_each_machine.3F

Check to make sure the email in your .conf file matches your BOINC email EXACTLY.  One of two things is happening, you haven't had enough BOINC credits to populate yet (takes a day or two if its a new account) or the email address isn't correct.  Let us know what you find.

It is probably best to burn the coins yourself.  There has been no official statement that the exchanges will do it for you.  It is very easy:

Assuming you have already downloaded and installed the new wallet: http://download.gridcoin.us/download/downloadstake/GridcoinResearch.msi

First update your wallet to the newest version:
you can choose to upgrade using the upgrade option in the wallet or by installing a fresh version, windows MSI Here: http://download.gridcoin.us/download/gridcoin.msi

Second, withdraw your coins from Polo or c-cex to your upgraded wallet

Third go to this page and follow the instructions: http://pool.gridcoin.us/CoinExchange.aspx

Also if you would like to catch up on everything the wiki's are starting to get populated nicely and have a lot of in depth information that is easy to read all in one place:
Primary: http://wiki.gridcoin.us/Main_Page
Mirror 1: http://coinwiki.info/en/Gridcoin
Mirror 2: http://coinwik.org/GridCoin

The website is slightly out of date.  The wiki is most up to date.  If you want information directly from the source open the debug window and enter the command "listitem projects" and it will give you the white list of projects approved for Gridcoin.  Also, less work than active hosts means the BOINC project doesn't have enough work to go around.  It is a good idea to add a few projects you want to contribute to, the new magnitude calculation takes the guess work out of choosing which project to contribute to because it is you average contribution across all projects for the entire Gridcoin team.  Just pick a few on the whitelist you like, make sure you have work in your boinc manager and you are working for science, getting rewarded in Gridcoin. 

There are two block chains.  Gridcoin-Classic and Gridcoin-Research.  Both are currently live and will run side by side for the next 6 months.  It may be helpful for you to read the wiki:

http://wiki.gridcoin.us


Be sure to click through and read the sub pages paying special attention to the Proof-of-Research, Events and the FAQ.  It is still a work in progress but that is currently the best resource for up to date information regarding Gridcoin right now.

We spent almost 4 months discussing, voting as a community, and testing the Proof-of-Research wallet.  Most of the information about testing and discussion is contained in these threads:
https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/13792-testers-wanted-gridcoinstake/
https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/16940-proof-of-research-and-economic-variables/
and starting about page 270:
https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/1331-new-coin-launch-announcement-grc-gridcoin/

In all there are well over 150 pages of in depth discussion that lead to the current launch of Proof-of-Research.

The new wallet is pure Proof-of-Research plus Stake now.  Only the wallet in retirement uses scrypt Proof-of-Work and the community decided that 6 months was a sufficient amount of time to convert the Classic coins to the new Research coins.  For the next 6 months there will be 2 wallets, the Classic wallet that runs on Proof-of-Work with a reduced reward and the Research wallet that runs on Proof-of-Research plus Stake.  For the most up to date information visit the wiki at:

http://wiki.gridcoin.us/Main_Page

You can burn them any time:
http://pool.gridcoin.us/CoinExchange.aspx

Thanks for sharing that asdlolciterquit that is the first time I've seen that.  I think there are some other coins with goals that align with Gridcoin very well.

EMC2 = Einsteinium
It is a scrypt PoW where 2% of every block goes to their foundation in perpetuity, proceeds are divided between coin maintenance/promotion and donating directly to scientific projects.  I remember when it was launched last spring, there was a lot of hype around the coin then all the anon coins and asic resistant algorithms came into vogue and people moved on.  I believe they have actually made a donation or two from the foundation but I would have to check on that. 

This is exactly the type of thing we will be able to contribute to once the GRC foundation is in place and funded.  Unfortunately the timing isn't the best as most active community members are focused on a smooth transition to our new blockchain and there isn't an official foundation in place yet to handle the  collection and dispersion of funds.  I will mention this in a post on the CCT forum to see if there is anyone who can help out.  Even if we don't currently have the resources as a community I am open to a cross post to assist in promotion of the campaign, thank you for reaching out.