For those who aren't familiar with folding at home, it is a protein unfolding program where you complete Work Units, which are basically just bio chemistry projects outsourced by researchers to individuals with spare computing power.
Previously people were just competing to see who could fold more whether by themselves or in teams.
But with crypto, along came a way to compensate folders for their efforts. For completing a work unit, you could get paid with Banano tokens if you joined the Banano team. In just two years, the Banano team has moved to the top of the leaderboard.
Unintended consequences
While i'm sure there'll be a lot of medical benefits coming out of this to fight diseases, when there's money, there'll be bad actors.
One scam is creating multiple accounts and sucking up all the available projects so as to corner the bananos being allocated.
This has led to a dearth in the available projects for folders. Of course, another reason is that with covid moonshot projects drying up, the amount of funds and research done is less.
Now if only we move that effort spent on covid to solving other diseases and quality of life problems. There's so much we don't know about our human body that I believe we're on the verge of understanding.
Too bad most of us alive today won't get to see that progress but it will be an amazing 22nd century.