Hyping Meme to make money and then donate, is it good or bad for research projects?
Author: Alex Liu, Foresight News
The heat of DeSci + Meme is not diminishing, what other good angles are there? Do these Meme coins really contribute to Science? Some people can't stand it anymore, shouting "Have you ever donated a penny to Sci-hub?"
What is Sci-hub?
According to Wikipedia, Sci-Hub is a shadow library. It uses various methods to bypass publishers' paywalls. In 2011, Kazakhstani graduate student Alexandra Elbakyan decided to establish Sci-Hub because the cost of research papers behind paywalls was too high. Its users are spread all over the world. In February 2021, Sci-Hub's homepage showed it had stored over 85 million papers.
Sci-Hub and Elbakyan have been sued for copyright infringement in the US twice. Both times they lost by default judgment. Sci-Hub has been praised by the scientific community, academia, and the publishing industry for effectively disseminating scientific knowledge and providing government-funded research to the public for free. Publishers, however, criticize it for infringing copyrights, reducing their revenue, and threatening university network security (though the publishers may be exaggerating the threats. Sci-Hub also encourages publishers to make their paywalls even stricter.)
In defending Sci-Hub, Elbakyan has in turn questioned whether the publishers' business practices are ethical and comply with Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She insists that operating Sci-Hub is a moral imperative, and the law should not prevent her. She has stated: "If all Americans obeyed bad laws, they would still be under the rule of the Queen, and slavery would still exist."
Meme coin scihub
"Have you ever donated a penny to Sci-hub?", the former chairman of Peking University Blockchain Association 0xAA felt this question was reasonable, so he donated 0.1 ETH.
But if it had just stayed at the donation, there wouldn't have been the exciting story that followed - 0xAA bought 22% of the supply of the meme coin named scihub.
This meme coin called scihub skyrocketed to a market cap of $70 million overnight. And the 22% of tokens held by 0xAA were worth tens of millions of dollars. Will he donate 20% of the tokens as promised? Would donating 20% of the supply justify this almost crazy hype?
Initially, Sci-hub founder Elbakyan did not endorse this project.
But later she added an option to accept SOL wallet donations on the Sci-hub website.
Afterwards, 0xAA stated that he had reached a consensus with Elbakyan and would honor his promise to donate 20% of the tokens.
Controversy
The event has sparked huge controversy in the Chinese community, mainly on two points:
Accusations of insider trading
Some accuse 0xAA of insider trading, claiming that the 22% is only the tokens held in his public wallet, and the actual number of tokens he controls is far higher than that proportion.
Why not just donate?
Is it really to support research or just a money game? Some also think he should have just donated directly instead of hyping a meme.
0xAA also admitted "I want to make money, the kind where we all make money together." He hopes everyone can win-win, both profiting from the meme coin and supporting Sci-hub's operations.
Supporters' views
While the opponents have their points, the community also has many supporters for 0xAA's actions, comparing the model of using meme fundraising and then donating a portion of the tokens to the lottery model.
