There's at least one coin that does that. It's a Nano clone (not sure if clone is the right word), called Banano.
You "mine" it by joining their folding@home team, and you get banano based on how many folding@home work units you complete. It's pre-mined though, so maybe that doesn't quite fit.
There was another cryptocurrency I remember which was mildly popular years ago called Primecoin, which attempted to find a certain type of prime numbers. It's interesting, but I'm not sure if it ever provided any actual usefulness from the work performed.
I don't see any reason that a cryptocurrency couldn't be tied to something like protein folding or climate simulations. People just don't choose to do so.
You "mine" it by joining their folding@home team, and you get banano based on how many folding@home work units you complete. It's pre-mined though, so maybe that doesn't quite fit.
There was another cryptocurrency I remember which was mildly popular years ago called Primecoin, which attempted to find a certain type of prime numbers. It's interesting, but I'm not sure if it ever provided any actual usefulness from the work performed.
I don't see any reason that a cryptocurrency couldn't be tied to something like protein folding or climate simulations. People just don't choose to do so.