The Longevity Prize has just received its second largest donation to date. The latest contribution has come from cryptocurrency entrepreneur and founder of the blockchain DAO ecosystem TRON, H.E. Justin Sun, who has confirmed his donation of $51K to the fund, telling Lifespan.io:
I am proud to support the Longevity Prize and what it stands for because I believe this initiative will definitely bring together the brightest minds to hack the aging code. I look forward to seeing more discoveries on longevity!
What is the Longevity Prize?
The Longevity Prize is a series of prizes created to accelerate development in the field of longevity research and honor researchers who are helping to make age-related diseases a thing of the past.
The first round, currently ongoing, is known as the Hypothesis Prize. Running until December 31 of this year, the Hypothesis Prize encourages individuals and teams interested in longevity science to step forward and propose their projects, potentially drawing from past discoveries and reinvigorating them with updated knowledge to uncover new solutions.
With up to $20,000 (USD) available for each successful applicant and a total of $180,000 for the first round, the prize seeks to provide a new avenue into innovative research funding.
Announced earlier this year by VitaDAO, Foresight Institute, Methuselah Foundation, and Lifespan.io, the Longevity Prize presents an alternative to traditional research funding. It intends to support projects related to improving the human lifespan that may have been otherwise undervalued or overlooked.
With just three months left for applicants to submit their proposals for the first round, the team behind the Longevity Prize believe that future Longevity Prize rounds can deliver a more in-depth approach.
Who is H.E. Justin Sun, and why is he investing in the Longevity Prize?
Sun has just become the latest crypto-entrepreneur to contribute to the prize fund, with a donation of $51,000. Sun is now joining the ranks of other well-known cryptocurrency philanthropists supporting life extension science, such as Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum blockchain founder) and Stefan George (Co-Founder and CTO of Gnosis).
Crypto projects, such as the Longevity Prize and VitaDAO, focus on generating a whole new way to engage in project funding. This is contrary to the traditional approach wherein clinical research can only begin once funds have been acquired, and these are usually highly competitive and create a barrier for more innovative approaches. The Longevity Prize offers an alternative and offers an opportunity for researchers to propose their ideas and receive initial funding to realize them.
In making the donation, Sun was shown to be following the moral philosophy of effective altruism. He said:
We always say, ‘life is too short’ and have come to just accept it. Humans have solved some of the most challenging problems we can possibly imagine. Life is the most precious thing in this universe, and extending the average lifespan will change the world beyond our imagination.
H.E. Justin Sun is a ‘crypto diplomat’, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Grenada to the WTO, and best known as the founder of the TRON blockchain DAO ecosystem.
Next steps for the Longevity Prize
With Sun’s donation and support confirmed, the Longevity Prize continues to invite potential participants to submit a one-page application detailing their ideas for the first-round Hypothesis Prize to address an undervalued longevity domain. With an up to $20K award available, the project’s founders encourage interested parties to apply by the deadline of December 31, 2022.
