Photo by george Crux from FreeImages

The corona pandemic has largely shut down everyday life in many countries. At the same time, however, such serious crises also open up opportunities for action in solidarity. That the crypto world can thus also make its contribution to the fight against Covid-19 has now been proven by the mining provider CoreWeave.

State authorities and companies around the world are mobilising more and more resources for the fight against the corona virus. The commercial CoreWeave data center is also participating in the global effort. For example, the largest Ethereum miner in the USA announced on March 13 that it would be dedicating a considerable portion of its computing power to research into the SARS CoV-2 virus.

CoreWeave announced via tweet that 6,000 high-end graphics cards would be connected to the Folding@Home network. The project, which was launched by Stanford University years ago, uses the computing power of volunteer network participants to research complex molecular structures. Folding@Home already published a blog post on March 10, announcing its participation in the fight against corona. However, the project is dependent on further computing power for this.

CoreWeave-CTO calls for further support

The CoreWeave co-founder and CTO told CoinDesk that the computing power of the Folding@Home network had doubled with the participation of his company. CoreWeave had previously been responsible for 0.2 percent of the Ethereum Hash Rate, which corresponded to a reward of 28 ETH per day.

Venturo also received high praise for Folding@Home's efforts in the fight against Corona. After all, the project has already made valuable contributions to research into other diseases:

Their research had a profound impact on the development of highly effective HIV repellents, and we hope that our computing power will help in the fight against the corona virus.

Meanwhile, Folding@Home stated in its blog post that it was looking for potential targets for antiviral drugs already approved on the market. The focus of the efforts is on research into the interactions of the coronavirus with those proteins that ensure its uptake into the human cell. The hope is therefore that certain drugs could prevent the virus from being absorbed into the cell. This could slow down its spread.

Venturo therefore called on other mining companies to make their computing power available for the project. However, the CoreWeave CTO estimates the chances of success of the venture at only two to five percent. In addition, only GPUs are suitable for Folding@Home. ASIC chips, which are mainly used in Bitcoin mining, cannot be used for the project.

Computing power and block chain know-how for the fight against corona

Meanwhile, Johann Tanzer also called on the crypto community to support Folding@Home. In a blog post, the founder of TulipTools, a Tezos development company, promised a reward of 15 Tezos for those who provide the most computing power to research the coronavirus.

Apart from computing power, the use of blockchain technology also offers benefits in the fight against the virus. The Dutch Public Health Blockchain Consortium launched such a monitoring solution. The platform takes an unusual approach, as it monitors the movement of non-infected persons. This approach makes it possible to mark communities and places of work as safe or not safe. All persons in a safe area are recorded, but if they enter an unsafe area, they must expect quarantine and isolation measures.