Traditional blockchains reward developers for small computations, such as successful DeFi trading or signing up for an airdrop. But what if you could receive rewards for significant computations that have a meaningful impact? From climate modeling to deep learning, your "Proof of Useful Work" can contribute to real-world change.
If you're interested in helping people solve large mathematical problems or physical simulations using Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) and receiving instant rewards for it, we encourage you to apply for the Proof of Useful Work Blueprint Grant project.
Problems You Can Help Solve with ZKPs Computer scientists typically classify problems based on their theoretical complexity, ranging from simple problems like finding the cheapest bread in a supermarket to complex problems like determining the shortest route through a list of cities.
Many institutions and organizations are already diligently working on finding solutions for complex problems. The BOINC scientific projects at the University of California, Berkeley, employ distributed computing to study and research diseases, climate change, pulsars, and many other types of scientific research.
Another initiative is folding@home, where developers can contribute their computational power to combat global health threats such as COVID-19, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer.
There are even more questions awaiting computational solutions:
Enhancing our understanding of celestial objects and physics.
Deep learning.
Climate modeling.
Modeling medicine and biology, for instance, protein folding.
Even SAT competitions are filled with computational problems.
The larger the task, the more computations it requires to solve. You can verify these large—very large—computations using Leo, a programming language, and ZKPs. The computational power required for some problems is limitless, so it's more advantageous to delegate their solution to trusted and untrusted parties (ZKPs allow for rapid and secure verification).
While systems like BOINC and folding@home incentivize crucial work, they don't financially reward contributors for their solutions. Furthermore, many previous attempts to reward "Proof of Useful Work" were focused on niche problems (see Primecoin).
The Aleo Proof of Useful Work Blueprint Grant offers a different approach. The Aleo network already rewards developers for creating ZKPs. Now, you can allow others to reward the resolution of meaningful computational problems.