Databases can be altered after the fact. As AI systems get better at generating and editing content, there is no reliable way to prove what a document originally said — a patent, a research paper, a historical record.

That is the first problem statement released for FirstBlock-athon, contributed by AI Institutet. It sits in Trust and Identity, one of the eight areas participants can work in.

What teams are asked to build

A store that can hold a record and prove it hasn't changed. The building blocks named are hashing, immutable ledgers and post-quantum cryptography.

AI Institutet frames the work as a Sovereign History Vault built on Alexandria Protocols. Underneath the naming, the requirement is straightforward: a document put in today has to be provably the same document years from now, even against an adversary with far better tools than exist at present.

Why it lands here

The problem is not new — archives and registries have always had to be trusted. What changes it is that forgery is becoming cheap and good. When the cost of producing a convincing alteration approaches zero, trust in the institution holding the record stops being enough on its own.

The remaining problem statements are released one at a time ahead of the event, which runs 7–11 September in Stockholm. Applications are open.

More on what's built on the blockchain beyond finance in Onchain Build.