Ethereum blockchain helps with coronavirus research: Real utilization of cryptocurrency mining performance
2 min read
CoreWeave, the largest US miner of Ethereum, redirects 6,000 mining units to coronavirus research and drug discovery.
Blockchan thus finds use in a crisis situation as a means to really help the world through redirection of computing power. The combination of the power of thousands of graphics cards and computers from around the world will create a distributed supercomputer for disease research.
Chances of finding a cure for coronavirus
CoreWeave co-founder Brian Venturo said it was at least a chance to find a cure and didn’t hesitate for a minute. The 6000 GPU used reportedly accounted for about 0.2 percent of Ethereum’s total hashrate, before earning power to research, earning about 28 ETH a day. The coronavirus vaccine is not yet available and is being found worldwide, including the IBM supercomputer. Venturo also noted that Stanford University’s Folding @ home research, where more than half of CoreWeave’s total computing power is now redirected:
“..It has had a profound impact on the development of anti-HIV drugs in the front line, and we hope our [computing power] will help combat coronavirus.”
Folding@home is a decentralized project in the same vein as Bitcoin. Instead of one research firm alone using a massive computer to do research, Folding@home uses the computing power of anyone who wants to participate from around the world – even if it’s just a single laptop with a little unused computing power to spare. In this case, the computing power is used to find helpful information relating to the coronavirus. Much like in bitcoin mining, one user might detect a “solution” to the problem at hand, distributing this information to the rest of the group.
“Their protein simulations attempt to find potential ‘pockets’ where existing [U.S. federal agency Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] approved drugs or other known compounds could help inhibit or treat the virus,” Venturo said.
Viruses have proteins “that they use to suppress our immune systems and reproduce themselves. To help tackle coronavirus, we want to understand how these viral proteins work and how we can design therapeutics to stop them,” a Folding@home blog post explains.
