Blockchain technology used to model more than 4 billion chemical reactions

In a unique experiment, a group of chemists led by Bartosz A. Grzybowski from the Korea Institute of Basic Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences used blockchain technology to model more than 4 billion chemical reactions that scientists believe played a key role in the emergence of life on early Earth. The study was published in the journal Chem on January 24.

The researchers adapted the process of solving complex mathematical problems, widely used in cryptocurrency mining, to the task of calculating chemical reactions. The goal of the scientists was to find out how primitive forms of metabolism could have emerged on Earth without the participation of enzymes. As part of the NOEL (Network of Early Life) project, a large network of chemical reactions was created. For this purpose, the main molecules that are likely to have existed on the early Earth, including water, methane, and ammonia, were selected. Scientists developed rules governing possible reactions between different types of molecules, which were then translated into a language that computers can understand.

After that, using the principles of blockchain technology, the team calculated these reactions within the created large-scale network. Both chemists and computer scientists from Allchemy actively participated in the project. To process the data, they used the Golem platform, which coordinates computations on hundreds of computers around the world and rewards them with cryptocurrency for computing time.

Initially, the NOEL network covered more than 11 billion chemical reactions. However, after careful analysis and selection, the number of potentially possible reactions was reduced to 4.9 billion. During the study, scientists found traces of already known metabolic processes and synthesized 128 simple biotic molecules, which sheds light on the complex processes of early prebiotic chemistry and allows us to better understand how life on Earth could have originated.

Of particular interest was the discovery that among the billions of reactions examined, only a few demonstrate the ability to «self-replicate» — the ability of molecules to create their own copies. Bartosz Grzybowski emphasized: «Our results show that self-amplification in the presence of only small molecules is a rare phenomenon.» This observation casts doubt on previously existing theories about the key role of self-replication in the origin of life.

Grzybowski sees his approach not only as having scientific value, but also as an opportunity to democratize science. Thanks to blockchain, complex calculations become accessible even to small universities and research centers, especially in developing countries.