Proximity Prize: Ethereum Foundation research rewards for SNARK soundness proofs
The Ethereum Foundation Proximity Prize rewards solvers who raise machine checked security bounds for hash based SNARKs. Proofs are checked in Lean.
The Proximity Prize is an open research rewards program run by the Ethereum Foundation Formal Verification team with Yukon and zkSecurity. The challenge lives at better.codes. The Ethereum Foundation announced it on 20 August 2026.
The goal is to raise the proven soundness bound of koalaIRS12, a Reed Solomon proximity problem that matters for hash based SNARKs. Production systems target 128 bit security, but what can be proven today is lower than what researchers believe is true. The challenge tries to close that gap. There are two tracks: one raises the proven lower bound and one lowers the attack bound.
To take part, sign in with GitHub at better.codes and clone the challenge repository. The theorem statement, parameters and verification harness are fixed. You work inside a set submission folder, and the Lean kernel checks every proof. Accepted submissions are promoted on a public leaderboard with credit, and new lemmas are shared with all participants. The program allows AI agents and human solvers to work on the same benchmark.
The program terms say participants must be at least 18. The Ethereum Foundation decides alone whether a submission gets an award and how much. A score or a place on the leaderboard is not a promise of payment. An award exists only after the foundation confirms it in writing. The page does not state a prize amount or an end date.
The leaderboard showed 81 promoted submissions from 22 solvers, with the most recent accepted on 1 October 2026.