{
  "schema_version": "1.2",
  "url": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/explorer/?mechanisms=M-0007&implementations=M-0007:I-0004",
  "data_generated": "2026-10-08",
  "definitions": {
    "methodology": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/methodology/",
    "readiness": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/readiness/",
    "filters": [
      {
        "id": "prover",
        "label": "Prover",
        "question": "How far can the party being checked be trusted?",
        "options": [
          {
            "value": "cooperative",
            "label": "Cooperative"
          },
          {
            "value": "semi-trusted",
            "label": "Semi-trusted"
          },
          {
            "value": "adversarial",
            "label": "Adversarial"
          }
        ],
        "rule": "Keeps mechanisms whose threat model holds against at least this prover. Adversarial is the strongest assumption.",
        "about": "The prover is the party being checked. Semi-trusted designs rely on part of its stack: usually the chip vendor's hardware root of trust, its firmware or counters, or its supply-chain records. Adversarial designs aim to hold even if it cheats wherever the checks allow, within their stated assumptions."
      },
      {
        "id": "onsite",
        "label": "Verifier devices on site",
        "question": "May the verifier install its own hardware at the prover's sites?",
        "options": [
          {
            "value": "no",
            "label": "Not allowed"
          }
        ],
        "rule": "\"Not allowed\" removes mechanisms that need a retrofit device, such as a network tap or a sealed sensor.",
        "about": "Some mechanisms need a device the verifier owns or trusts at the prover's facility, such as a network tap, a bandwidth limiter or a sealed sensor. Choose Not allowed when the setting rules that out. Inspectors are not covered."
      },
      {
        "id": "coop",
        "label": "Prover cooperation",
        "question": "How much must the prover take part?",
        "options": [
          {
            "value": "partial",
            "label": "Partial at most"
          },
          {
            "value": "none",
            "label": "Not required"
          }
        ],
        "rule": "\"Partial at most\" removes mechanisms that need the prover's active participation. \"Not required\" keeps only those that work without it.",
        "about": "Required: the prover takes part, for example by logging requests, producing proofs or opening records. Partial: some access, such as installing a device. Not required: works from outside, such as satellite imagery."
      },
      {
        "id": "chips",
        "label": "Chips",
        "question": "May the proposal depend on new chip designs?",
        "options": [
          {
            "value": "existing",
            "label": "Existing chips only"
          }
        ],
        "rule": "\"Existing chips only\" removes mechanisms that need changes to future chip designs.",
        "about": "New chip features take years to reach a deployed fleet and cover only chips made after they ship. Mechanisms that use shipping features, such as trusted execution environments or performance counters, stay."
      },
      {
        "id": "ready",
        "label": "Minimum readiness",
        "question": "How mature must each mechanism be?",
        "options": [
          {
            "value": "R1",
            "label": "R1 Proposed"
          },
          {
            "value": "R2",
            "label": "R2 Demonstrated"
          },
          {
            "value": "R3",
            "label": "R3 In production"
          },
          {
            "value": "R4",
            "label": "R4 Deployment-ready"
          }
        ],
        "rule": "Keeps mechanisms whose readiness level is at least this one.",
        "about": "A level describes the public evidence for a mechanism's stated use, not its cost or feasibility. R3 can still have open critical flaws."
      },
      {
        "id": "tested",
        "label": "Attack testing",
        "question": "How hard has each mechanism been attacked in public?",
        "options": [
          {
            "value": "analysis",
            "label": "Published analysis"
          },
          {
            "value": "red-teamed",
            "label": "Red-teamed"
          },
          {
            "value": "independent-red-team",
            "label": "Independent red-team"
          }
        ],
        "rule": "Keeps mechanisms whose strongest published attack testing is at least this.",
        "about": "The strongest published attempt to break the mechanism for its verification use: a security analysis, red-teaming by its developers or collaborators, or a red team independent of them."
      },
      {
        "id": "hide",
        "label": "Keep hidden from the verifier",
        "question": "What must the verifier never see?",
        "options": [
          {
            "value": "weights",
            "label": "Model weights"
          },
          {
            "value": "io",
            "label": "Inputs and outputs"
          },
          {
            "value": "training",
            "label": "Training data"
          }
        ],
        "rule": "Removes mechanisms that show the asset to the verifier. Conditional or unspecified exposure stays with a note and needs checking against the privacy requirement.",
        "about": "Model weights: the checked model's parameters. Inputs and outputs: the requests a deployed model serves and its responses. Training data: what a model was trained on. Each mechanism's exposure is the editors' reading of its record: shown, depends on the design (kept, with a note), hidden, not involved, or unspecified for a selected implementation. Code and configuration are not covered yet."
      }
    ],
    "exposure": "For model weights, inputs and outputs, and training data. This is the editors' reading of each mechanism's record (its threat model, how it works and its limitations), not a field of the record. Shown: the verifier sees it. Depends: on the design or variant, or the verifier sees only samples. Hidden: the verifier sees only commitments, hashes, proofs or results. Not involved: the record does not handle it. Unspecified: the selected implementation has no asset-specific assessment here.",
    "claim_status": {
      "addressed": "A mechanism in the proposal is aimed at this claim and is not excluded by the filters.",
      "partly-addressed": "Only supporting mechanisms, or mechanisms aimed at it that the filters exclude.",
      "unaddressed": "No mechanism in the proposal addresses this claim."
    },
    "finding_scope": "Evidence scope describes where a finding was demonstrated; it does not establish applicability to every implementation in the mechanism family.",
    "claim_finding_scope": "open_critical_findings names active findings on the assessed records; open_critical_context names conditional family findings whose implementation applicability is unassessed.",
    "legacy_status": "The status field retains covered/partial/none for compatibility. It names claim links, never successful verification. Use claim_status and status_label for presentation."
  },
  "filters": {
    "prover": "",
    "onsite": "",
    "coop": "",
    "chips": "",
    "ready": "",
    "tested": "",
    "hide": []
  },
  "mechanisms_passing_filters": 25,
  "claims": [],
  "mechanisms": [
    {
      "id": "M-0007",
      "title": "Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting",
      "url": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/",
      "assessment_record": {
        "id": "I-0004",
        "title": "Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain",
        "url": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/"
      },
      "selected_implementation": {
        "id": "I-0004",
        "title": "Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain",
        "url": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/"
      },
      "readiness": {
        "level": "R3",
        "scope": "checking matrix-multiplication work proofs for blockchain consensus",
        "confidence": "low",
        "evidence": [
          "S-1107",
          "S-1105",
          "S-1106",
          "S-1609",
          "S-0071"
        ]
      },
      "assessed_properties": {
        "threat_model": "adversarial",
        "hardware_requirement": "none",
        "prover_cooperation": "required",
        "adversarial_evaluation": "analysis"
      },
      "claims": [],
      "exposure": {
        "weights": "unknown",
        "io": "unknown",
        "training": "unknown",
        "note": "This Explorer has no asset-specific exposure assessment for this implementation. Check its source and deployment assumptions.",
        "sources": []
      },
      "family_finding_context": [
        {
          "n": 1,
          "title": "Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains",
          "kind": "theoretical-argument",
          "severity": "significant",
          "status": "open",
          "evidence_scope": null,
          "scope_note": null,
          "related_finding": null,
          "description": "Proof-of-work accounting bounds unmonitored compute only relative to an estimate of what the actor has. Attestable states that the verifier \"needs a credible estimate of the compute available\" to the actor, and that a proof \"cannot discover a datacenter that was never declared\".",
          "response": null,
          "sources": [
            "S-1102"
          ],
          "helps": [
            {
              "by": "M-0019",
              "how": "A registry of chips is one basis for the estimate of available compute that the flaw's source says the verifier needs."
            },
            {
              "by": "M-0020",
              "how": "Looks for data centres that were never declared, which a proof cannot discover."
            }
          ],
          "record": "M-0007",
          "represented_by": []
        },
        {
          "n": 2,
          "title": "Security rests on new hardness assumptions",
          "kind": "open-question",
          "severity": "significant",
          "status": "open",
          "evidence_scope": null,
          "scope_note": null,
          "related_finding": null,
          "description": "Komargodski and Weinstein base security on hardness assumptions about batches of low-rank random linear equations, and list PoUW \"from more standard or well-studied assumptions\" as an open problem. Pearl's floating-point variant introduces a further \"quantized-subspace hardness\" assumption.",
          "response": null,
          "sources": [
            "S-1609",
            "S-1105"
          ],
          "record": "M-0007",
          "represented_by": []
        },
        {
          "n": 3,
          "title": "Known shortcuts let a miner claim somewhat more work than it did",
          "kind": "theoretical-argument",
          "severity": "significant",
          "status": "open",
          "evidence_scope": null,
          "scope_note": null,
          "related_finding": null,
          "description": "Pearl's specification lists known mining speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. A policy check caps the summands a miner may skip at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. For capacity bounding, any gap between work proven and work possible leaves spare capacity.",
          "response": null,
          "sources": [
            "S-1105"
          ],
          "record": "M-0007",
          "represented_by": []
        }
      ],
      "filter_issues": []
    }
  ],
  "strengths": {
    "covered": [],
    "production": [
      "M-0007"
    ],
    "adversarial": [
      "M-0007"
    ],
    "noNewHardware": [
      "M-0007"
    ],
    "mitigated": [],
    "notCounted": []
  },
  "properties": {
    "covered": [],
    "production": [
      "M-0007"
    ],
    "adversarial": [
      "M-0007"
    ],
    "noNewHardware": [
      "M-0007"
    ],
    "mitigated": [],
    "notCounted": []
  },
  "attack_testing": [
    {
      "id": "M-0007",
      "record": "I-0004",
      "evaluation": "analysis",
      "in_setting": true
    }
  ],
  "selected_implementations": {
    "M-0007": "I-0004"
  },
  "weaknesses": {
    "gaps": [],
    "excluded": [],
    "unlinked": [],
    "critical": [],
    "significant": [
      {
        "mech": "M-0007",
        "n": 2,
        "title": "Security rests on a new, informal hardness assumption",
        "kind": "open-question",
        "severity": "significant",
        "status": "open",
        "evidence_scope": null,
        "scope_note": null,
        "related_finding": null,
        "description": "The FP8 scheme relies on \"Assumption 1 (Informal quantized-subspace hardness)\": quantised products of noised matrices are assumed not to be substantially easier than generic ones. The integer construction it extends lists PoUW from more standard assumptions as an open problem.",
        "response": null,
        "sources": [
          "S-1105",
          "S-1609"
        ],
        "record": "I-0004"
      }
    ],
    "criticalMechanisms": [],
    "significantMechanisms": [
      "M-0007"
    ],
    "familyContext": [
      {
        "id": "M-0007",
        "implementation": "I-0004",
        "flaws": [
          {
            "n": 1,
            "title": "Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains",
            "kind": "theoretical-argument",
            "severity": "significant",
            "status": "open",
            "evidence_scope": null,
            "scope_note": null,
            "related_finding": null,
            "description": "Proof-of-work accounting bounds unmonitored compute only relative to an estimate of what the actor has. Attestable states that the verifier \"needs a credible estimate of the compute available\" to the actor, and that a proof \"cannot discover a datacenter that was never declared\".",
            "response": null,
            "sources": [
              "S-1102"
            ],
            "helps": [
              {
                "by": "M-0019",
                "how": "A registry of chips is one basis for the estimate of available compute that the flaw's source says the verifier needs."
              },
              {
                "by": "M-0020",
                "how": "Looks for data centres that were never declared, which a proof cannot discover."
              }
            ],
            "record": "M-0007",
            "represented_by": []
          },
          {
            "n": 2,
            "title": "Security rests on new hardness assumptions",
            "kind": "open-question",
            "severity": "significant",
            "status": "open",
            "evidence_scope": null,
            "scope_note": null,
            "related_finding": null,
            "description": "Komargodski and Weinstein base security on hardness assumptions about batches of low-rank random linear equations, and list PoUW \"from more standard or well-studied assumptions\" as an open problem. Pearl's floating-point variant introduces a further \"quantized-subspace hardness\" assumption.",
            "response": null,
            "sources": [
              "S-1609",
              "S-1105"
            ],
            "record": "M-0007",
            "represented_by": []
          },
          {
            "n": 3,
            "title": "Known shortcuts let a miner claim somewhat more work than it did",
            "kind": "theoretical-argument",
            "severity": "significant",
            "status": "open",
            "evidence_scope": null,
            "scope_note": null,
            "related_finding": null,
            "description": "Pearl's specification lists known mining speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. A policy check caps the summands a miner may skip at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. For capacity bounding, any gap between work proven and work possible leaves spare capacity.",
            "response": null,
            "sources": [
              "S-1105"
            ],
            "record": "M-0007",
            "represented_by": []
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "minor": 2,
    "minorFindings": [
      {
        "mech": "M-0007",
        "n": 1,
        "title": "Known mining speedups reduce work per proof",
        "kind": "theoretical-argument",
        "severity": "minor",
        "status": "open",
        "evidence_scope": null,
        "scope_note": null,
        "related_finding": null,
        "description": "Pearl lists known speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed or commitment grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. Its jackpot policy checks limit crafted inputs, and a policy check caps skippable summands at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. Pearl describes faster honest kernels or hardware as \"not an attack on the protocol\".",
        "response": null,
        "sources": [
          "S-1105"
        ],
        "record": "I-0004"
      },
      {
        "mech": "M-0007",
        "n": 3,
        "title": "Verification does not check that mined matrices come from AI workloads",
        "kind": "theoretical-argument",
        "severity": "minor",
        "status": "open",
        "evidence_scope": null,
        "scope_note": null,
        "related_finding": null,
        "description": "Miners choose their own matrices. Basu reports that Pearl's verification \"does not check whether the matrices originate from an AI model\", that random matrices pass it, and that Pearl's reference mining code generates uniformly random matrices, with vLLM inference as an option. String analysis suggests that the dominant third-party mining software contains no inference code. Basu also finds that a naive fixed-threshold check of matrix kurtosis is defeated, at negligible cost, by sampling clipped Gaussian matrices. Basu calls the gap \"a design property\" rather than a vulnerability. It does not affect the claim that work was performed, but it means the \"useful\" part of the work is not verified.",
        "response": null,
        "sources": [
          "S-1609",
          "S-0071"
        ],
        "record": "I-0004"
      }
    ],
    "minorBy": [
      {
        "id": "M-0007",
        "n": 2
      }
    ],
    "notDemonstrated": [],
    "newChip": []
  },
  "findings": [
    {
      "mech": "M-0007",
      "record": "I-0004",
      "n": 1,
      "title": "Known mining speedups reduce work per proof",
      "kind": "theoretical-argument",
      "severity": "minor",
      "status": "open",
      "evidence_scope": null,
      "scope_note": null,
      "related_finding": null,
      "description": "Pearl lists known speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed or commitment grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. Its jackpot policy checks limit crafted inputs, and a policy check caps skippable summands at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. Pearl describes faster honest kernels or hardware as \"not an attack on the protocol\".",
      "response": null,
      "sources": [
        "S-1105"
      ]
    },
    {
      "mech": "M-0007",
      "record": "I-0004",
      "n": 2,
      "title": "Security rests on a new, informal hardness assumption",
      "kind": "open-question",
      "severity": "significant",
      "status": "open",
      "evidence_scope": null,
      "scope_note": null,
      "related_finding": null,
      "description": "The FP8 scheme relies on \"Assumption 1 (Informal quantized-subspace hardness)\": quantised products of noised matrices are assumed not to be substantially easier than generic ones. The integer construction it extends lists PoUW from more standard assumptions as an open problem.",
      "response": null,
      "sources": [
        "S-1105",
        "S-1609"
      ]
    },
    {
      "mech": "M-0007",
      "record": "I-0004",
      "n": 3,
      "title": "Verification does not check that mined matrices come from AI workloads",
      "kind": "theoretical-argument",
      "severity": "minor",
      "status": "open",
      "evidence_scope": null,
      "scope_note": null,
      "related_finding": null,
      "description": "Miners choose their own matrices. Basu reports that Pearl's verification \"does not check whether the matrices originate from an AI model\", that random matrices pass it, and that Pearl's reference mining code generates uniformly random matrices, with vLLM inference as an option. String analysis suggests that the dominant third-party mining software contains no inference code. Basu also finds that a naive fixed-threshold check of matrix kurtosis is defeated, at negligible cost, by sampling clipped Gaussian matrices. Basu calls the gap \"a design property\" rather than a vulnerability. It does not affect the claim that work was performed, but it means the \"useful\" part of the work is not verified.",
      "response": null,
      "sources": [
        "S-1609",
        "S-0071"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "possible_additions": [
    {
      "id": "M-0002",
      "title": "Deterministic and bit-exact inference",
      "url": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/deterministic-inference/",
      "readiness": "R3",
      "fits_filters": true,
      "filter_issues": [],
      "reasons": [
        {
          "kind": "prerequisite",
          "mech": "M-0007"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "goal": null,
  "design": null,
  "dependencies": {
    "prerequisites": [
      {
        "id": "M-0002",
        "neededBy": [
          "M-0007"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "shared": [],
    "blockers": [
      {
        "mech": "M-0007",
        "n": 1,
        "text": "Built for consensus rather than capacity bounding; verifying that declared hardware has no spare capacity would also need a credible compute estimate.",
        "theme": "capacity-bounds",
        "blocked_by": null,
        "sources": [
          "S-1102"
        ],
        "inProposal": null
      },
      {
        "mech": "M-0007",
        "n": 2,
        "text": "Performance figures are provider-reported, and the benchmark reports no baseline of the certified model without mining.",
        "theme": "adversarial-validation",
        "blocked_by": null,
        "sources": [
          "S-1106"
        ],
        "inProposal": null
      },
      {
        "mech": "M-0007",
        "n": 3,
        "text": "Bit-exact verification depends on reproducing GPU arithmetic deterministically.",
        "theme": "performance-compatibility",
        "blocked_by": null,
        "sources": [
          "S-1105"
        ],
        "inProposal": null
      }
    ]
  },
  "exposure": {
    "weights": {
      "shown": [],
      "partial": [],
      "hidden": [],
      "none": [],
      "unknown": [
        "M-0007"
      ]
    },
    "io": {
      "shown": [],
      "partial": [],
      "hidden": [],
      "none": [],
      "unknown": [
        "M-0007"
      ]
    },
    "training": {
      "shown": [],
      "partial": [],
      "hidden": [],
      "none": [],
      "unknown": [
        "M-0007"
      ]
    }
  },
  "implementations": [
    {
      "mechanism": "M-0007",
      "selected": {
        "id": "I-0004",
        "title": "Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain",
        "url": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/"
      },
      "implementations": [
        {
          "id": "I-0004",
          "title": "Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain",
          "url": "https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "S-1107",
      "title": "pearl: Monorepo for the Pearl network",
      "authors": "Pearl Research Labs",
      "year": 2026,
      "url": "https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl",
      "path": "/sources/pearl-network-monorepo/"
    },
    {
      "id": "S-1105",
      "title": "Pearl Floating Point Scheme Specification",
      "authors": "Pearl Research Team",
      "year": 2026,
      "url": "https://pearlresearch.ai/Pearl_Whitepaper.pdf",
      "path": "/sources/pearl-floating-point-scheme-specification/"
    },
    {
      "id": "S-1106",
      "title": "Pearl INT Whitepaper",
      "authors": "Pearl Research Labs",
      "year": 2026,
      "url": "https://pearlresearch.ai/research/int-whitepaper",
      "path": "/sources/pearl-int-whitepaper/"
    },
    {
      "id": "S-1609",
      "title": "Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication",
      "authors": "I. Komargodski & O. Weinstein",
      "year": 2025,
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09971",
      "path": "/sources/komargodski-proofs-useful-work-matrix-multiplication/"
    },
    {
      "id": "S-0071",
      "title": "The Usefulness Gap in Proof-of-Useful-Work: An Empirical Study of Pearl's cuPOW Protocol",
      "authors": "A. Basu",
      "year": 2026,
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.04819",
      "path": "/sources/basu-usefulness-gap-pearl/"
    },
    {
      "id": "S-1102",
      "title": "Pacing AI Requires Proof",
      "authors": "Attestable",
      "year": 2026,
      "url": "https://attestable.com/blog/pacing-ai-requires-proof",
      "path": "/sources/attestable-pacing-ai-requires-proof/"
    }
  ]
}