It would be cool to have a Patreon-like system for math proofs. But to reward solvers appropriately and at scale, the award conditions and evaluation would have to be very formalized and specific.
This seems to be one potential, actually useful application of blockchains which support general purpose computing - if you can port a proof verifier onto them, you give anyone the ability to commit to (and claim) proof bounties.
Now, precisely formalizing specific conjectures and ensuring the proof system is expressive enough but doesn't allow for the introduction of any new assumptions is another problem...
This seems to be one potential, actually useful application of blockchains which support general purpose computing - if you can port a proof verifier onto them, you give anyone the ability to commit to (and claim) proof bounties.
Now, precisely formalizing specific conjectures and ensuring the proof system is expressive enough but doesn't allow for the introduction of any new assumptions is another problem...