the chain where mining is proving (2025). zkPoW replaces hash-grinding with useful proof labor: miners compete to produce STARK proofs of computations over the Nock ISA — twelve opcodes, deterministic reduction — and the chain verifies proofs instead of re-executing work. the watts that secure the network are the watts that generate verifiable computation
the lesson: point the miners' energy at proving. once proof generation is the work itself, security spending and useful computation stop competing for the same joules. kindred machinery to nox — the same Nock ancestry, reduced over a field so the trace is the witness — where every computation already pays for its own zheng proof