What is Decentralized Science (DeSci)? How does it, combined with crypto, change the scientific field?

Decentralized Science (DeSci) revolutionizes the way science raises funds, shares data, publishes papers, and collaborates on scientific research through blockchain and decentralized mechanisms. Projects such as VitaDAO, AthenaDAO, and GenomesDAO are representative projects that promote the development of the DeSci concept.

Original text: What Is Decentralized Science (DeSci)? (coingecko)

Author: Hans Be

Compiled by: Vernacular Blockchain

What is Decentralized Science (DeSci)? Decentralized Science (DeSci) refers to the use of blockchain technology and its related functions, such as Tokens, NFTs, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), to promote open, incentivized, and community-driven scientific research and collaboration. Through DeSci, researchers can share data, publish papers, and obtain funding without traditional intermediaries, thereby promoting transparency and innovative development of science.

As many revolutions are driven by technology, and most of the topics discussed at CoinGecko often revolve around decentralized systems, the field of science will also undergo a similar transformation - this transformation will change the way research, publication, financing and collaboration are carried out, trying to provide solutions to many problems in the field of science. In this article, we will explore this relatively new concept: decentralized science (DeSci) and take a deep look at representative projects with ambitious goals in this field.

1. What is Decentralized Science (DeSci)?

In an interview, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin described Decentralized Science (DeSci), a concept he believes aims to answer:

“What are some emerging open, decentralized technologies that can make science better?”

This sentence summarizes the core idea of decentralized science.

Before we go into detail, putting aside the various popular terms related to blockchain, let us first focus on the primary application scenarios of decentralized blockchain technology, namely improving institutional problems in scientific research, promoting better cooperation, and improving financing efficiency.

1) DeSci: A Broad Concept

DeSci, or decentralized science, is a broad concept that covers many dynamic approaches and topics aimed at democratizing scientific research and discovery. It not only involves blockchain-based projects, but also includes various forms of promoting scientific progress through emerging technologies such as DAO and Web3.

Problems in Traditional Science and the “Valley of Death”

In traditional science, the “valley of death” is a common metaphor that refers to the critical stage between basic scientific research and the successful development of innovative results that benefit patients. During this stage, many studies are stranded due to lack of funding, resources, and effective collaboration methods.

To cross this "valley of death", we need a new and more effective approach. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized, transparent and community-driven characteristics, is expected to play an important role in this process. The following section will analyze specific problems in traditional science and explore how decentralized science can alleviate these challenges through innovative solutions.

There are many areas in the scientific field that are in urgent need of innovation. In addition to the solutions currently provided by many DeSci projects, there may be more branches that need to be upgraded in the future.

The key areas of focus for decentralized science currently include:

A. Data Sharing : Overcoming the traditional, outdated data sharing system and improving data traceability, ownership, and sovereignty. This will help ensure the transparency and accuracy of research data and promote broader collaboration.

B. Research and Publishing : Revolutionize the research and publishing process. The traditional publishing model has always been the focus of criticism in the scientific community, with high costs, long peer review, and lack of transparency. DeSci aims to improve these problems through a decentralized platform and enhance the accessibility and fairness of academic results.

C. Financing : With the rise of borderless and tamper-proof financing methods driven by cryptocurrencies, scientific research has ushered in a new crowdfunding model. This new financing method can help more scientific research projects obtain the necessary financial support, no longer relying on traditional government and institutional funding, and greatly broadening the source of research funds.

In the following sections, we will look at some of the projects that consider themselves to be within the realm of decentralized science (DeSci), many of which call themselves decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

2) Research and publication

One of the biggest challenges facing traditional science, as anyone involved in it will readily appreciate, is the sheer number of requirements that must be met before research can begin, or even once research results reach the publication stage. Here are some of those challenges:

• Peer review issues Peer review is an integral part of scientific research, but it often provides limited value and significantly slows down the dissemination of new findings. Not only can peer review give a false impression of quality assurance, but in some cases, positive reviews are even required to ensure that research can be published.
• Intellectual PropertyAnother complicating factor is intellectual property (IP) protection, such as patents, which can hinder the open sharing of information and slow scientific progress.Many universities view patents as a potential source of revenue and implement strict policies governing the use of any “proprietary” work.
• In addition to various restrictions in the research process, the publishing field also faces similar barriers. Even if scientists are willing to make their research results public, academic journals still control whether the research can be published. As the main " gatekeepers " of research, journals often prioritize their commercial goals rather than promoting open science.
• High Fees Many academic journals have been criticized by the academic community for their high open access publishing fees, accusing them of unethical profit levels that even exceed those of some tech giants.

These gatekeepers earn most of their income from unpaid labor in academia—including reviewing and writing research papers, which are often supported by public and philanthropic funds. Is this where we are going to end up? This could prevent some life-changing discoveries from being published.

3) Application of blockchain solutions in scientific research and publishing

This leads to a discussion on how blockchain technology can provide solutions for improving scientific research and publishing.

A. Open Science - Decentralization

It is necessary to restructure the existing centralized structures and decentralize their problems. This is a way of thinking about (more) open science, where platforms redefine themselves as open collections that focus on open sharing, and peer review should not add unnecessary delays.

This new system recognizes that there are many forms of scientific contribution beyond journal publishing, because many breakthroughs in scientific history have been made by people outside the scientific system. These opposing viewpoints have disrupted the mainstream of scientific thinking and provided us with new perspectives.

ResearchHub: A crypto-powered scientific discussion platform

ResearchHub is a platform designed to advance a collaborative open science model where researchers can share their favorite research articles, discover new papers, and engage with the scientific community.

Their ultimate goal is to become the go-to platform for scientific discussion, accelerating scientific breakthroughs by rewarding contributors through incentives. The project is backed by Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong, who is passionate about solving the world’s biggest problems through technology. His passion even led him to sell 2% of his shares in Coinbase to fund ResearchHub—what a philanthropist!

The incentive mechanism is carried out through ResearchCoin (RSC) Token, which is a community reward token and the currency of ResearchHub. Users can earn RSC by actively participating in platform activities, such as uploading papers, posting comments, creating posts, etc.

In addition, users can also earn RSC by having other users consider their contributions valuable. In addition, bounty tasks can be created for community members, and RSC incentives will be given for completing specific tasks.

B. Tokenization of Intellectual Property – IP-NFTs

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have the potential to revolutionize how intellectual property is owned and managed, putting control and monetization opportunities in the hands of creators and researchers rather than the institutions where the research is published.

They can represent unique digital assets such as research papers, patents, datasets, code, etc. and can be used to prove ownership, with all information verifiable on the blockchain. Transparency is key, and the peer review process can also be fully tracked, including reviewers and published comments.

4) Funding issues for traditional science

The traditional science funding process is long and complex, fraught with administrative issues and regulations imposed by different agencies that could use more updating and improvement.

A. Large number of grant applications

In traditional academia, applying for grants requires writing a lot of applications and outlining a lot of work in advance. This long pre-publication work can hinder risk-taking and innovation. What's more, in order to obtain funding, researchers often need to cater to the interests of potential funders.

B. Asymmetric benefits

With a high concentration of top contributors and private industry being the largest source of most funding, conflicts of interest are unavoidable and tend to skew research results toward the interests of the funders.

C. Lack of incentive mechanism

Additionally, we observe that scientists are not sufficiently rewarded for practices like transparency, replicating the work of others, and high-risk/innovative ideas, which may result in many valuable directions not being explored and many opportunities being missed.

5) Blockchain solutions to funding issues in science

Now, let’s look at some blockchain-based solutions to address funding challenges in science.

A. Raising funds through tokenization

As mentioned earlier, IP-NFTs can not only represent the ownership of intellectual property, but also raise funds for projects. Scientists can sell their IP-NFTs to investors, who can benefit from the intellectual property income. By tokenizing intellectual property, it can help cross the "valley of death" barrier by bringing liquidity to the early development stages.

Molecule Protocol: Science and Intellectual Property NFTs

Molecule is a platform that bridges the gap between biomedical research projects and the required funding. It primarily serves two types of users: researchers and investors.

Researchers with a specific research goal, project, or idea can find all types of investors, from traditional pharmaceutical venture capital firms to patient advocacy groups and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

Molecule aims to provide biotech DAO builders with IP-NFT legal frameworks, organizational templates, funding, talent and other resources. Disease-specific DAOs funded by patients and researchers can shorten the feedback cycle.

B. Intellectual Property Non-Fungible Token (IP-NFT)

The platform will use IP-NFT, which is similar to standard NFT in that it manages ownership of a specific asset and serves as a key to the underlying project. For example, if a research project generates a certain dataset or obtains a patent, IP-NFT can access this data stored in a decentralized data storage system. This also allows intellectual property to be traded.

C. Venture capital funds

Fundraising through tokenization can not only bring liquidity in advance and change short-term risk allocation, but also achieve continuous fundraising, or evaluate earlier whether a project is worth pursuing.

This different risk profile means that different types of investors and capital sizes can participate. Anyone can fund and drive innovation at the earliest stage. This is more like the model of venture capital or startup funding.

For example, we saw Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin donate $1.5 billion of SHIB to Crypto Relief India in 2021. The fund currently has more than $200 million, mainly in USDC. The rapid distribution of this fund relies on the support of blockchain technology.

2. Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

The problems and challenges described above are often systemic. Deep bureaucratic inertia lengthens processes, and incentives in project controls are misaligned, and these controls must change if we want different outcomes.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations ( DAOs ) are a broad category of projects and innovative solutions that have the unique ability to allocate funds and control processes.

This new type of decentralized organization provides a platform for like-minded individuals and enables expert leadership when evaluating funding proposals. Governance proposals from the scientific community will be decided through on-chain voting .

When discussing the decentralized science ecosystem, one must mention the many DAOs that are taking on the new DeSci narrative, where interoperability between DAOs is the rule rather than the exception.

1) VitaDAO

VitaDAO is the first collective to fund early-stage longevity research, aiming to extend healthy life and health span by raising funds for early-stage research projects and incubating startups for commercialization. It has raised $4.1 million and is backed by Pfizer and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan.

One of the most important trends is the decentralization and democratization of emerging therapeutics in the biotech space. VitaDAO aims to decentralize these assets and make them widely accessible to people around the world.

Over the past few decades, the biopharmaceutical system has been largely monopolized by pharmaceutical companies through patents. This situation will change if VitaDAO is in the lead. They will challenge the monopoly of the traditional biopharmaceutical system by decentralizing the acquisition of intellectual property and democratizing its ownership more broadly.

2) Athena DAO: A research center focusing on women’s health

Research into women's health is underfunded. In fact, menopause and its associated symptoms do not appear in the Global Burden of Disease database, which tracks the leading causes of death and disability. This suggests that women's health issues are lacking in adequate research and appropriate solutions, which could have serious consequences.

Athena DAO's mission is to change the landscape of women's health research. A global decentralized community is needed to drive critical shifts in the understanding and treatment of women's unique health needs and diseases.

Athena DAO is evaluating treatments, computational models, and research projects related to ovarian aging, menopause, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, uterine fibroids, and more.

3) Valley DAO: Synthetic Biology Solutions for Climate Change

ValleyDAO is a community of scientists, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts that aims to make synthetic biology more accessible to more people, a field that has great potential to address global sustainability challenges.

By engineering new biological systems and modifying existing ones, synthetic biology can be used to address challenges in climate change, disease, food and energy production , for example by developing new sustainable energy sources, creating bacteria that can clean up pollution, and growing crops with more nutritional value.

4) Bio.xyz: DeSci DAO accelerator

Bio.xyz is an accelerator that supports several of the aforementioned DAO projects, such as VitaDAO, ValleyDAO, and AthenaDAO. This means that through Bio.xyz’s Launchpad platform, these DAOs can obtain generated tokens through token auctions.

Individuals who want to apply for BioDAO launch will need to submit an application, which will be thoroughly reviewed. After successful applicants are selected, they will receive the first funding for BioDAO launch based on the completion of necessary milestones. Non- DAO participants can also participate in the real-time auction, ensure sufficient balance in the wallet, bid, monitor the progress of the auction, and receive token allocations.

5) Genomes DAO

GenomesDAO is based on the belief that everyone should own their own genome . Their goal is to build the world's largest user-owned genome database and share it with the public, organizations, and researchers. It is committed to meeting the growing expectations of research institutions, organizations, and customers for genomic data security and research workflow quality.

The data is securely stored in the user’s personal DNA vault, which can be controlled through the Genomes mobile app. Researchers from pharmaceutical/biotech companies and academia can easily query the database to help understand the causes of disease and develop new drugs without infringing on an individual’s privacy or ownership.

How to get your DNA sequenced on Genomes? Get your DNA sequenced via Genomes.io:

• Click on “Get DNA Sequenced” and log in.
• Select a sequencing provider and order a kit.
• Activate the kit online using the code included in the kit.
• Download the Genomes.io app.
• Scan the QR code on the kit activation page.
• Follow the instructions to complete the process.

The integration of DAOs in scientific research can not only democratize decision-making but also pave the way for more collaborative and open scientific research, which is a revolutionary step forward.

6) INNBC: Innovative Biological Research Coin

INNBC has published a peer-reviewed paper on the application of blockchain technology to scientific research. The research involves the decentralization of biomedical data storage and sharing, and how to ensure the permanent availability of data, provide proof of existence, and protect the rights of authors through features such as immutability, timestamps, and identities.

3. What is the future of decentralized science (DeSci)?

The future of decentralized science is in full swing, with much debate surrounding its effectiveness and necessity. Some believe it will promote inclusiveness and freedom in scientific research, while others worry it may face strong opposition from traditional academic circles and big pharmaceutical companies, which, with the help of regulators, are often "too big to fail."

A decentralized scientific future has enormous potential, and if implemented correctly and carefully, it has the potential to give rise to new economic and social systems that redefine the priorities of progress and profit.

4. Summary

The combination of blockchain technology and science offers a compelling path to address systemic challenges such as the “Death Valley”, such as inefficient peer review, intellectual property disputes, and funding barriers.

Perhaps, DAOs have the potential to transform the monopoly of the pharmaceutical industry into a collaborative community that optimizes capital and labor for the benefit of patients. Although this field is still in its early stages, it constitutes an exciting new frontier in decentralized science.

However, we should not overlook that decentralized science will be based on the general mechanisms of blockchain technology, but this does not mean that it must be limited to blockchain, as the answer will depend on how and where these technologies and methods contribute to the scientific method.

Note: The information in this article is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before investing in any protocol or token.

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