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Geneva, Switzerland — September 16, 2026 — The Office of Justin Sun today announced the establishment of the Justin Sun Prize, a zero-trust, decentralized academic bounty mechanism based on a “problem list,” with breakthroughs in fundamental disciplines and machine formal verification as the criteria for awarding prizes, and a top prize of up to US$1 million for a single problem. The prize seeks to redefine scientific rewards in the AI era and accelerate fundamental scientific research through collaboration between humans and AI.
The first list of Justin Sun Prize winners was also announced, recognizing solutions and formalized proofs involving 66 mathematical problems. The top prize, worth US$1 million, was awarded to the OpenAI research team in recognition of its solution and formalized proof for the Existence and Smoothness of the Three-Dimensional Navier–Stokes Equations problem. According to information published by OpenAI, the relevant proof was produced by its internal model, and the Lean formalization and verification were completed by GPT‑6 Astra.
This problem concerns the Navier–Stokes equations, which describe the motion of fluids and are commonly abbreviated as the N–S equations. The equations were developed in the 19th century by French physicist Claude-Louis Navier, Irish-born British mathematician George Gabriel Stokes, and others, and have a history of approximately two hundred years. In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute listed the Navier–Stokes Existence and Smoothness problem as one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems and offered a US$1 million reward for its solution.
The Justin Sun Prize does not use traditional nominations or credential thresholds as barriers to entry, nor does it operate on a four-year cycle or the rhythm of lifetime achievement. Instead, it ties the prize directly to mathematical problems and machine-verifiable formalized proofs. Anyone can receive the prize as long as they are the first to achieve a qualifying breakthrough.
The vision of the Justin Sun Prize is to become the “Nobel Prize of the AI Era,” responding to the profound transformation of scientific research and incentives in the new era in a more decentralized, formalized, and machine-driven way. The repository of mathematical problems and formalized code will be maintained and publicly updated on an ongoing basis. Once a problem is listed, it is locked in: problems can be added only, never removed; awarded prize funds do not need to be returned under any circumstances.
The current problem list already includes formal verification of the Poincaré Conjecture, the Riemann Hypothesis, Goldbach’s Conjecture, and a large number of unsolved problems proposed during the lifetime of the late mathematician and Wolf Prize laureate Paul Erdős.
In addition to the prize, winners will also receive a certificate and a medal. The edge of the medal is inscribed with the Latin phrase “Quod probatur, solvitur,” meaning “Proved, then paid.”
The Justin Sun Prize adheres to three core principles: openness, public benefit, and open source. It is open to all eligible contributors, with no restrictions based on nationality, institution, or identity, and makes no distinction between humans and AI; funds are used exclusively for prize awards and open initiatives and are not intended for profit; the problem list, confirmation standards, proofs, and verification materials are all made available to the public through GitHub, while prize disbursement records are recorded on-chain for permanent traceability and immutability.
“An award named after a person is the least political thing in the world,” said Sun. “More importantly, it gives me an answer to myself—my wealth is rooted in mathematics. It came from mathematics, and it will return to mathematics.”
According to public records, Sun has donated more than US$45 million across technology, environmental protection, disaster relief, and other fields. The Justin Sun Prize will become a central focus of Sun’s philanthropic efforts, continuing to support breakthroughs in fundamental science through an open and verifiable model.
The prize will be paid out in either USDT on TRON (TRC-20) or USDC on Ethereum (ERC-20) based on the recipient’s choice. For more information, please visit www.hejustinsun.com/prize.
About the Office of Justin Sun
The Office of Justin Sun supports Justin Sun’s global business, philanthropic and public initiatives across technology, blockchain, artificial intelligence, scientific research, investment, art and space exploration.
Justin Sun is the Ambassador and former Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization and the Founder of TRON. TRON is the leading blockchain for the stablecoin revolution, processing over $13 trillion in volume since its inception. In the world’s emerging markets, people rely on USDT on TRON to access the global financial system.
A protégé of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Sun has been recognized internationally for his work in the digital asset industry, including a Forbes cover profile in April 2025 and multiple appearances on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. In August 2025, he flew aboard Blue Origin’s NS-34 mission, becoming the 712th person in history to travel to space. His broader interests span technology, investment, philanthropy, art, gaming, and space exploration.
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About Justin Sun Prize
The Justin Sun Prize is an academic initiative established by Justin Sun to support advances in mathematics, formal verification, and AI-assisted scientific discovery. The prize is decentralized and built around the principle that mathematical work should be judged by the strength, rigor, and verifiability of the proof itself, not the prestige or reputation of those submitting it.
Justin Sun established the prize in his own name as a long-term commitment to return wealth created through mathematics and technology back to mathematics itself. Its legacy is intended to be defined by the body of work it recognizes and the laureates whose discoveries stand the test of time. The prize links clearly defined mathematical challenges to machine-verifiable proof. Its guiding principles are openness, public benefit and open-source access.
Visit https://www.hejustinsun.com/prize for more information.
Contact:
thejustinsunprize@hejustinsun.com
