1. About the Justin Sun Prize
The Justin Sun Prize, established in 2026 by Chinese entrepreneur and TRON founder Mr. Justin Sun, is the world's first zero-trust, decentralized academic bounty mechanism built around a curated "Problem List". Awarded for breakthroughs in foundational research and machine-assisted formal verification, the Prize recognizes anyone—professional researchers, independent enthusiasts, or human-AI collaborative teams—who convert human-readable mathematical proofs into machine-verifiable ones.
Mr. Sun views relentless exploration and innovation as the driving forces of human civilization for millennia. In today's AI-powered world, advancing the boundaries of knowledge requires more than individual effort—it demands translating mathematical insight into formally verified results that machines can check without ambiguity. The Justin Sun Prize was created to ensure that these rigorous milestones are promptly recognized, valued, and carried forward.
"All things are mathematics." Positioned as the "Nobel Prize of the AI Era", the Justin Sun Prize responds to a historic absence: there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics. Unlike traditional academic honors, it operates through a model that is decentralized, formalized, and machine-driven. Once a submission successfully passes machine verification, the contributor automatically qualifies for award adjudication.
2. Funding and Governance
2.1 The Justin Sun Prize is funded personally by Mr. Justin Sun and administered by the Prize Operator.
2.2 Mr. Sun acts solely as donor and presenter; he takes no part in the evaluation process.
2.3 The Prize establishes an Academic Committee comprising leading AI models and domain experts. AI committee members provide preliminary evaluations and recommendations, while the Organizing Committee makes final award decisions.
2.4 The Prize operates on an open-source model. All official information is published via GitHub under the organization TheJustinSunPrize (https://github.com/TheJustinSunPrize).
2.5 Bounty eligibility extends retroactively to qualifying achievements completed on or after January 1, 2026.
2.6 Prize money will be disbursed in cryptocurrency. Awardees must pass mandatory compliance and identity verification (KYC) specified by the Prize Operator. If an awardee's account presents compliance risks or breaches relevant laws and regulations, the Prize Operator reserves the right to request an alternative payout method or suspend disbursement.
3. Prize Structure
3.1 Award Tiers
The Prize establishes five reward tiers:
Tier I: Pinnacle: Reserved exclusively for foundational, central bottlenecks designated within the official Problem List. Disbursement is pegged at $1,000,000 USD per verified closure.
Tier II: Breakthrough: Pertains to long-standing, research-grade open problems. The specific capital allocation shall be determined by the Academic Committee.
Tier III: Landmark: Awarded for research-grade problems with partial closures. Capital allocation is determined upon Committee review.
Tier IV: Advance: Applies to exploratory formulations. Capital allocation is determined upon Committee review.
Tier V: Contribution: Granted for open community contributions. Capital allocation is determined upon Committee review.
Operational Note:
• The Tier I (Pinnacle) bounty is fixed at $1,000,000 USD.
• Allocations across Tiers II through V are adjudicated by the Academic Committee and published upon review.
• All stated allocations represent gross prize pools, disbursed between the solver and the formal Lean verifier in accordance with the allocation protocol specified in Section 5.
3.2 Forms of Award
Prize money, official certificates, and medals will be awarded on a case-by-case basis.
3.3 Prize Disbursement and Delivery
Prize money will be disbursed in cryptocurrency—either TRC-20 USDT or ERC-20 USDC—with only one option permitted per payout.
4. Assessment Principles
The Prize evaluates each submission across three core dimensions to determine its tier and allocation:
• Problem Longevity: How long the problem has remained open in the public scientific domain.
• Publication Venue: The rigor and standing of peer-reviewed journals or premier conferences where the proof was vetted.
• Academic Recognition: The extent of formal recognition and acceptance within the broader mathematical community.
Specific dimension thresholds, logic matrices, publication venues, benchmark signals, and detailed procedural rules remain strictly internal. Evaluation results require joint signing by the Academic Committee, with final authorization granted by the Organizing Committee.
4.1 Entry Prerequisites
Submitting a Pull Request (PR) containing Lean formalization to the official GitHub repository (TheJustinSunPrize) and passing automated verification is a mandatory prerequisite for evaluation entry. If a submitted Lean formalization has already been publicly released and is broadly recognized by community consensus as peer-verified, re-verification is waived. In such cases, the submission shall take the form of a registration application rather than a PR, and entry shall be confirmed upon verification of its traceable timestamp.
The Prize exclusively recognizes Lean formal verification. Pre-existing formalizations in other proof assistants (Coq, Isabelle, HOL, etc.) serve only as secondary context and do not satisfy the entry prerequisite.
Lean verification serves strictly as a pass/fail entry threshold and is not factored into the final evaluation dimensions.
4.2 Adjustments Based on Completion Status
After a submission's base reward tier is established, final payouts shall be determined based on the formalization's completion status:
• Fully Resolved: The original proposition is fully proved, disproved, or otherwise conclusively settled.
• Substantially Resolved: The essential cases of the core conjecture are resolved, leaving only routine technical generalizations open.
• Partial Progress: Parameter bounds or special cases are improved, but the main proposition remains unresolved.
• No Progress: Ineligible for an award.
4.3 Academic Committee Governance
Tier designations are adjudicated by the Academic Committee and require consensus approval. Committee members with conflicts of interest regarding recipient roles shall recuse themselves. Re-evaluations shall be assigned to unconflicted members who took no part in the initial assessment.
5. Awardee Eligibility and Prize Allocation
Prize funds shall be split between two distinct roles:
Problem solver: the individual or team that first resolves the mathematical proposition will receive 70% of award allocation.
Lean formal verifier: the individual or team that completes the Lean formalization and submits the verified PR will receive 30% of award allocation.
Where both roles are fulfilled by the same entity, that entity shall receive 100% of the prize allocated to the given problem.
The Prize imposes no restrictions on solver identity: awards are granted strictly based on verified mathematical results, without distinction among human researchers, human-AI teams, or autonomous AI systems. Publication venue, format, or prior publication status shall not serve as a prerequisite for receiving the award, provided that the mandatory Lean formalization requirement is met.
The prize is awarded to the first contributor to resolve the proposition. Where multiple independent contributors achieve the solution within the same evaluation window, joint awards may be conferred.
Where the awardee is a team, the Prize recognizes only the collective entity and shall not intervene in its internal distribution; the team must designate an authorized representative and a legal payee.
Where the solver is an autonomous AI system, the declaring applicant, authorized representative, and payee shall be a natural person, legal entity, or their written authorized representative.
6. Submission and Verification
Workflow: Online Submission → Offline Verification → PR Finalization → Three-Criteria Evaluation
• Online Submission: Submit a PR to the official GitHub repository (TheJustinSunPrize), including the Lean-formalized statement, proof, and supporting evidence package.
• Offline Verification: Designated verifiers conduct checks in an isolated environment, including axiom audits, independent checker reviews, and related procedures.
• PR Finalization: Once verified, the PR is merged to establish eligibility, lock the priority timestamp, and advance the submission to evaluation.
Multiple valid PRs for the same problem are ordered strictly by priority timestamp. Verification is strictly Pass/Fail, without qualitative comparison.
Inclusion Does Not Constitute an Award: Works that lack a submitted PR or fail verification may be indexed in the problem repository and leaderboard and leaderboard, but shall not enter evaluation, receive a tier rating, or be awarded a prize.
7. Objections, Review, and Revocation
Awardees or any third party may file an objection within 14 days of public disclosure regarding tier classification, credit attribution, formal verification conclusions, awardee designation, or related matters. Objections shall be reviewed by Academic Committee members who did not participate in the original evaluation, with final conclusions published upon consensus approval.
Revocation may be triggered by any of the following conditions: defects in proposition fidelity, failure to detect placeholder or unreviewed axioms, erroneous definitions yielding vacuous conclusions, disclosed soundness vulnerabilities in the underlying proof system or checker that compromise verification, refutation of the mathematical result by peer review, erroneous awardee designation, voluntary disclosure by the awardee, or other material grounds.
An awarded tier may be revoked upon consensus approval by the Academic Committee, subject to public disclosure of the rationale and complete evidence. In principle, disbursed prize funds are not subject to clawback. The revocation record shall be permanently displayed alongside the original award entry.
Objections shall not pertain to whether the problem itself has been solved, as that determination rests exclusively with the broader mathematical community.
8. Guiding Principles
8.1 Openness and Inclusivity
The Prize is open to all eligible contributions regardless of nationality, institutional affiliation, or status, making no distinction between human and AI contributors.
8.2 Non-Profit Commitment
The Prize is a non-profit initiative established solely for the public benefit. All funds are allocated exclusively to prize disbursements and related open-access initiatives, with no intent of commercial gain.
8.3 Open Access and Transparency
The Prize is committed to open access. The problem list, verification criteria, proofs, and verification materials associated with the Prize are accessible to the public, provided that third-party rights are not infringed. Selection rules and outcomes shall remain transparent and subject to public scrutiny.
9. Supplementary Provisions
9.1 Version Control
These Rules are designated by a version number and an effective date. Any amendments shall update the version number, log the changes, and make the full revision history publicly available.
9.2 Interpretation and Amendments
The Prize Operator retains final authority over the interpretation of these Rules and reserves the right to amend them based on operational requirements. All amendments take effect immediately upon publication.
9.3 Intellectual Property and Data Privacy
Applicants must ensure that all materials submitted for verification are free of intellectual property defects and do not infringe upon third-party rights. The Prize Operator asserts no ownership over the intellectual property of awarded submissions. However, applicants by default grant the Prize Operator a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use their names, result summaries, and verification materials solely for the purpose of announcing, publicizing, and promoting the Prize. All personal data will be collected, stored, and used in strict compliance with applicable laws, solely for identity verification and prize disbursement.
9.4 Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability
Given that formal verification technologies, underlying mathematical proof assistants, independent type-checkers, and AI systems are continuously evolving, the Prize Operator shall, in accordance with applicable law, review and rectify any evaluation discrepancies, system misjudgments, or data anomalies arising from undisclosed or unknown technical defects or vulnerabilities in third-party tools, underlying compilers, or the system itself. The Prize Operator's aggregate civil liability for any claims arising from or related to such issues shall in no event exceed the prize amount for that specific problem.
9.5 Governing Law and Dispute Resolution
The construction, validity, performance, and dispute resolution of these Rules shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Hong Kong. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Rules, the evaluation of submissions, or prize disbursements that cannot be resolved through amicable negotiation shall be referred to and finally resolved by arbitration administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) under the HKIAC Administered Arbitration Rules in force when the Notice of Arbitration is submitted. The arbitral award shall be final and binding upon all parties.
9.6 Effective Date
These Rules shall take effect upon publication.