ETH major miner provides computing power to find a cure for coronavirus

The largest Ethereum miner in the US, CoreWeave redirects the processing power of 6,000 graphics cards to research [email protected] to seek treatment for coronavirus.

CoreWeave said it will direct the power of half of its GPUs for research purposes of the project [email protected] Stanford University. In late February, researchers unveiled an initiative to stimulate research on coronavirus using a unique approach to pharmaceutical development. This project brings together thousands of computers from around the world to create a distributed supercomputer for disease research.

Co-Founder and CTO of CoreWeaveBrian Venturo said the project has a chance to find a cure for the virus. CoreWeave joined the initiative and doubled the power of its entire network of researchers with its GPUs, which are designed to handle repetitive computing.

According to Venturo, these 6,000 graphicprocessors accounted for about 0.2% of the Ethereum total hashrate, and earned approximately 28 ETH per day - $ 3600 at the moment. There is no cure for coronavirus yet, although various groups are working on vaccines and research on the disease, including the IBM supercomputer. Venturo noted that the project [email protected] previously contributed to the creation of other important drugs.

“Their research has had a profound impact on the development of innovative HIV drugs, and we hope that our computing power will help fight the coronavirus,” said Venturo.

Coronavirus harms economies and systemshealth care in many countries. In Italy and Spain introduced strict isolation regime. Conferences are being canceled around the world, shops and restaurants are closing to stop the spread of the disease. This contributes to increased fear and uncertainty in financial markets.

World computer

When is the idea of ​​using GPUsfor the study of coronavirus was voiced in CoreWeave, the team did not postpone participation in the project in a long box. According to Venturo, the test system was up and running "in a few minutes." CoreWeave donated more than half of its computing power to a coronavirus research project.

[email protected] - decentralized project. His researchers use the computing power of everyone to participate in the initiative, even if the user can only offer his laptop with a small supply of unused computing power.

As part of a new initiative, computing powerused to find useful information about coronavirus. One user can discover the "solution" to the problem and distribute this information to the rest of the group.

“Their protein model is trying to find potential“Loopholes,” where existing drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or other known compounds, can help slow the spread or treat the virus, ”said Venturo.

“Viruses contain proteins that are used tothe reproduction and suppression of our immune system. To help fight coronavirus, we want to understand how these viral proteins work and how we can develop medications to stop them, ”the blog explains. [email protected]

Modeling of these proteins and their subsequentviewing from different angles helps scientists better understand them, which could potentially contribute to drug discovery. Computers accelerate this process by shuffling changes very quickly.

“Our goal is to usecomputer simulations for understanding the moving parts of a protein. Observing how the atoms in a protein move relative to each other is important because it collects valuable information that is not available when using other means, ”the report said.

Health miners

Venturo encourages other miners to join the project. However, even without these calls for participation, miners of other cryptocurrencies are already taking action.

Last week, the founder of Tulip.tools Johann Tanzer turned to Tezos “bakers” (analogues of miners in this blockchain) with a call to action, promising to send to the one who will provide the most power [email protected], 15 XTZ worth approximately $ 20. To Tanzer's surprise, the initiative received a response - 20 Tezos baker groups are now contributing to the project. The reward from Tanzer increased to about $ 600 through donations from Tezos users.

But this does not mean that all miners can take part in the project. ASIC miners are designed specifically for mining, and, according to Venturo, they will not be able to join the initiative.

“This is one of the great features.Ethereum mining ecosystems - in fact, this is the largest computing resource based on video cards on the planet. We were able to switch our equipment to help combat the global pandemic in a matter of minutes, ”said Venturo. “After discussion with some industry experts, we believe that the chances of success are in using the work done [email protected], for drug development, will be in the range of 2-5%. "

Not all participants in the cryptocurrency industryseek to help in the fight against coronavirus - scammers, in contrast, are trying to capitalize on a pandemic. The other day it became known that fraudsters stole more than $ 2 million in cryptocurrencies in a panic because of the coronavirus. They sell medical masks and antiseptics for cryptocurrencies, but they do not ship goods.