The liability of China is the main question here.
If it was released from a lab (and I don't think it was), China is liable to this world pandemic which is a huge thing.
You are right. The way they structure their challenges is different. Basically it's a debate between the two parties and judges with the relevant domain-knowledge will decide who is right.
I think this is the most unscientific way to judge a claim, but I think that it's possible that the a group of people with enough knowledge in epidemiology and biology will be able to win this competition.
From their Twitter account:
"Probably our most surprising finding to date: COVID-19 has likely originated in a lab.
A probabilistic analysis shows the proximity to a major coronavirus lab and anomalies in the genetic code are too unlikely for SARS-CoV-2 to have developed naturally.
"
There are many people that are convinced this is the case, however, most scientists with the relevant domain knowledge claim that the virus was naturally mutated.
The reason I posted it here is because I think they don't get enough attention from people from the industry who understand biology, statistics and reasoning.
They are using the fact that no one challenges them as an evidence that their claims are true.
Rootclaim, an Israeli startup, claims Covid-19 SARS-CoV-2 was developed in a Chinese lab and was released was released by accident.
They are offering to bet $100,000 on the accuracy of our analysis.
Here you can find information about the challenge: https://www.rootclaim.com/rootclaim_challenge
Personally, I think their logic is doesn't work and I would like to see someone credible challenges them.
It's very interesting that most people here mentioned changes only to the top layers while one of the most urgent problem is in the BGP protocol that help route traffic between ISPs.
Many times in recent years governments and ISP used it to steal the traffic of entire countries, or to block websites.