Traditional blockchains typically reward developers for minor computations, such as executing a correct DeFi transaction or signing up for an airdrop. But what if you could earn rewards for substantial computations that have a meaningful impact? From modeling climate changes to conducting in-depth learning tasks, your Proofs of Useful Work (performing extensive computations) could contribute to real-world changes.
If you're interested in helping people solve significant, verifiable mathematical problems or run physical simulations using zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and receive instant rewards for it, we encourage you to apply for a Proof of Useful Work Blueprint Grant proposal (RFP).
Challenges Addressed with ZKPs:
Computer scientists typically classify problems based on their theoretical complexity, ranging from straightforward tasks like optimizing a supermarket route to find the cheapest bread to complex problems like determining the shortest path through a list of cities.
Many institutions and organizations are already diligently working on finding solutions to complex problems. Scientific projects like BOINC at the University of California, Berkeley, utilize collaborative computing to study and research diseases, climate change, pulsars, and a variety of other scientific investigations.
Another initiative, folding@home, allows developers to contribute their computational power to combat global health threats like COVID-19, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer.
There are even more issues awaiting computational solutions, such as:
Enhancing our understanding of celestial objects and physics.
Deep learning.
Climate modeling.
Medical and biological modeling, such as protein folding.
Even SAT competitions involve computational challenges.
The more significant the problem, the more computations are required to solve it. You can perform large—very large—computations within Leo, Aleo's programming language, using ZKPs. Some problems demand nearly unlimited computational resources, making it more efficient to delegate their solutions to trusted and untrusted parties (ZKPs enable swift and secure verification of the latter).
While systems like BOINC and folding@home are essential for valuable work, they do not financially reward workers for their solutions. Additionally, many previous attempts to reward "Proofs of Useful Work" often focused on narrowly specialized 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 enable others to offer rewards for solving computational problems that make a difference.
