# AI verification proposal

A proposal built with the Proposal Explorer of the AI Verification Tech Map (https://trustbutveri.fyi/), from its records of 2026-10-08. Interactive version: https://trustbutveri.fyi/explorer/?mechanisms=M-0007&implementations=M-0007:I-0004

How to read it: a claim is something one party wants to verify about another's AI hardware or software. A mechanism is a general technique for verifying claims; it is "aimed at" a claim when that is its direct purpose, and "supporting" when it contributes without being aimed at it. A claim is addressed when a mechanism in the proposal is aimed at it and is not excluded by the filters; addressed does not mean verified, so check that mechanism's readiness and open flaws. Readiness levels R0 to R4 describe one record's public evidence for its assessed use and are never combined. Definitions: https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/methodology/ (roles, properties and flaws) and https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/readiness/ (readiness levels).

## Filters

Filters apply to mechanisms only and describe the setting the proposal is for.

None set. Every mechanism on the map was available.

## Overview

One row per mechanism, read from its record. Open flaws: critical / significant / minor. The last three columns are the editors' reading of what the verifier sees.

| Mechanism | Readiness | Prover | Attack testing | Hardware | Open flaws | Weights | Inputs and outputs | Training data |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting / Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain | R3 | Adversarial | Analysis | None | 0 / 1 / 2 | unspecified | unspecified | unspecified |

## Claims

No claims chosen.

## Mechanisms

### Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

A blockchain whose mining is designed to be a by-product of GPU matrix multiplications in AI workloads, with public node and miner code. ([Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting](https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/))

- Assessment: selected implementation [Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/).
- Readiness: R3 In production, assessed for checking matrix-multiplication work proofs for blockchain consensus.
- Claims in this proposal: none of them.
- Threat model: adversarial prover. Hardware: none. Prover cooperation: required. Attack testing: analysis. Category: Cryptographic & computational.
- What the verifier sees: model weights unspecified; inputs and outputs unspecified; training data unspecified. This Explorer has no asset-specific exposure assessment for this implementation. Check its source and deployment assumptions.


## Properties

**In production**

- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: R3 In production, assessed for checking matrix-multiplication work proofs for blockchain consensus

**Built for an adversarial prover**

- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

**No new hardware needed**

- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting


## Attack testing

Published attempts to break a system, including those that found failures. Testing history does not establish that open flaws are resolved.

**Testing history**

- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting / Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain: Analysis


## Limits

**Open significant flaws**

- Security rests on a new, informal hardness assumption (open question, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/#flaw-2) [2][4]. 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.

**Family finding context**

- Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; applicability depends on the finding's scope. Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains (theoretical argument, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/#flaw-1) [6]. 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".

  Related mechanism: Chip registries and manufacturing records (R1, not in the proposal). A registry of chips is one basis for the estimate of available compute that the flaw's source says the verifier needs.

  Related mechanism: Remote detection of data centres (R1, not in the proposal). Looks for data centres that were never declared, which a proof cannot discover.
- Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; applicability depends on the finding's scope. Security rests on new hardness assumptions (open question, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/#flaw-2) [2][4]. 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.
- Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; applicability depends on the finding's scope. Known shortcuts let a miner claim somewhat more work than it did (theoretical argument, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/#flaw-3) [2]. 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.

**Open minor flaws**

- Known mining speedups reduce work per proof (theoretical argument, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/#flaw-1) [2]. 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".
- Verification does not check that mined matrices come from AI workloads (theoretical argument, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/#flaw-3) [4][5]. 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.


## Possible additions

Mechanisms on the map, not in the proposal, that the records connect to an unaddressed or partly addressed claim, an open flaw or a dependency. Pointers, not recommendations: each brings its own readiness level and flaws, and none is claimed to close a flaw.

- **Deterministic and bit-exact inference** (R3 In production, assessed for reproducing open-model inference from receipts in Gensyn's information-market service)
  - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting depends on it.


## Dependencies

**Missing prerequisites**

- Deterministic and bit-exact inference (R3 In production, assessed for reproducing open-model inference from receipts in Gensyn's information-market service), needed by Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

**Blockers**

- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Built for consensus rather than capacity bounding; verifying that declared hardware has no spare capacity would also need a credible compute estimate. (capacity bounds) [6]
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Performance figures are provider-reported, and the benchmark reports no baseline of the certified model without mining. (adversarial validation) [3]
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Bit-exact verification depends on reproducing GPU arithmetic deterministically. (performance & compatibility) [2]


## What the verifier sees

- Model weights: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in none; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.
- Inputs and outputs: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in none; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.
- Training data: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in none; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.

## Implementations

- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: [Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/) (R3, open-source project)

## Sources

1. pearl: Monorepo for the Pearl network, Pearl Research Labs (2026). https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl
2. Pearl Floating Point Scheme Specification, Pearl Research Team (2026). https://pearlresearch.ai/Pearl_Whitepaper.pdf
3. Pearl INT Whitepaper, Pearl Research Labs (2026). https://pearlresearch.ai/research/int-whitepaper
4. Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication, I. Komargodski & O. Weinstein (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09971
5. The Usefulness Gap in Proof-of-Useful-Work: An Empirical Study of Pearl's cuPOW Protocol, A. Basu (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.04819
6. Pacing AI Requires Proof, Attestable (2026). https://attestable.com/blog/pacing-ai-requires-proof