GuShiio.com DeSci may not be able to disrupt traditional academic systems, but it is expected to play a complementary role in areas such as research funding, journal publishing and data sharing.
Author: @100y_eth
Compilation: Vernacular blockchain
The academic system is riddled with holes, but DeSci is not a panacea.
Special thanks to @tarunchitra (Gauntlet),@NateHindman (Bio) and Benji @benjileibo (Molecule) for their feedback and review of this article.
I recently obtained a chemically engineered disease and published four papers as first author while studying for a degree, including articles from top academic journals such as Nature and the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Although my academic experience is limited to the postgraduate stage and I have volunteered as an independent researcher, so I may discover something, in my nearly six years of academic career, I have gained a deep understanding of the structural problems of fire protection within the academic system.
In this context, DeSci (decentralized science) hopes to use blockchain technology to challenge the decentralization shortcomings of traditional academic systems, which is undoubtedly a very attractive concept. Recently, DeSci has set off a craze in the crypto market, and people believe it has the potential to completely disrupt the existing landscape of scientific research.
I also look forward to such changes. However, I don’t think it is highly likely that DeSci will completely replace the traditional academic system. From a practical perspective, DeSci is more likely to serve as a complementary force to help solve some of the core issues in the academic system.
Therefore, at the core of DeSci’s bass, I hope to have the opportunity to combine my academic experience to explore some structural problems in traditional academic systems, assess whether blockchain technology really provides effective solutions, and further explore DeSci’s potential for academia.
1. Sudden DeSci craze
1) DeSci: From niche concepts to thriving sports
Long-standing structural problems in academia have long been widely known. For example, VOX articles “Seven Problems of Science in the Eyes of 270 Scientists” and “The War to Liberate Science” have discussed this issue in depth. Over the years, people have tried various ways to address these challenges, some of which we will discuss in detail later.
The concept of DeSci (decentralized science) is an attempt to use blockchain technology to solve these problems, but this idea did not gradually attract attention until around 2020. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong introduced the DeSci concept to the crypto community through ResearchHub and tried to recalibrate incentives for scientific research through ResearchCoin (RSC).
However, due to the capital-speculative nature of the crypto market, DeSci has not been able to gain widespread attention for a long time, and only a few small communities were promoting its development until the emergence of pump.science 2) Butterfly effect caused by pump.science
Source: pump.science
pump.science is the DeSci project in the Solana ecosystem, developed by the well-known DeSci platform Molecule. The project is not only a fundraising platform, but also uses Wormbot technology to stream long-term experiments in real time. Users can propose compounds that they think may extend life, or purchase Tokens associated with those ideas.
When the market value of a certain Token exceeds a set threshold, the project party will use the Wormbot equipment to conduct experiments to verify whether the compound really has the effect of extending the life of the experimental subject. If the experiment is successful, the Token holder will receive relevant rights and interests in the compound.
However, some community members have criticized this model, arguing that these experiments lack sufficient scientific rigour and are difficult to truly promote the development of anti-aging drugs. Gwart expressed skepticism with sarcastic remarks, representing a group of cautious and even skeptical views of DeSci, questioning the arguments promoted by its supporters.
pump.science adopts a Bonding Curve mechanism, which is similar to Molecule’s model, that is, the Token price will continue to increase as the number of buying users increases.
Tokens launched by the project, such as RIF (corresponding to rifampicin) and URO (corresponding to urofosin A), just caught up with the meme Token craze in the crypto market, and prices soared. This wave of market prices unexpectedly pushed DeSci into the public eye. However, the irony is that what really makes DeSci popular is not its scientific vision, but the surge in prices caused by the Token speculation craze, which has attracted widespread attention from DeSci.
Source: @KaitoAI
In the rapidly changing crypto market, DeSci has long been a niche area. However, in November 2024, it suddenly became one of the hottest narratives. Not only has the price of www.example.com-related tokens skyrocketed, BN has also announced its investment in the DeSci funding agreement Bio, and other mature DeSci Tokens have also seen significant increases. This series of events marks a critical moment for DeSci. pump.science
2. Defects in Traditional Science
It is no exaggeration to say that there are a large number of systemic and serious problems in academia. In my academic career, I have often wondered: How can such a flawed system keep working? Before exploring the potential of DeSci, we might as well examine the shortcomings of traditional academic systems.
1) One of the systemic challenges: research funding
A. Evolution of R & D funding
Before the 19th century, the way scientists obtained research funding was very different from today, relying mainly on the following two models:
- Sponsorship: European monarchs and aristocrats often subsidize scientists to demonstrate their prestige and promote scientific progress. For example, Galileo received funding from the Medici family, allowing him to continue telescope development and astronomy research. Religious institutions also played a role in the development of science, and during the Middle Ages, churches and clergy funded research in fields such as astronomy, mathematics and medicine.
- Self-financing: Many scientists rely on personal income to support research. They may be university professors, teachers, writers or engineers, earning funds through these professions to maintain scientific exploration.
By the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, a centralized scientific research funding system led by the government and enterprises began to take shape. Especially during World War I and World War II, governments of various countries established scientific research institutions and invested large amounts of money in national defense research to win the war.
In the United States, the National Aviation Advisory Council (NACA) and the National Research Council (NRC) were established during World War I. In Germany, the predecessor of the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German Scientific Emergency Foundation (Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft), was born in 1920. At the same time, the rise of corporate laboratories such as Bell Labs and GE Research also marks the beginning of companies to actively participate in scientific research funding and work with the government to promote the development of R & D.
This government-and enterprise-driven scientific research funding model has gradually become mainstream and continues to this day. Governments and companies invest huge budgets every year to support researchers around the world. For example, in 2023, the U.S. federal government’s R & D spending will reach US$190 billion, an increase of 13% from 2022, highlighting the government’s core role in promoting scientific research and development.
Source: ResearchHub
In the United States, the allocation process for scientific research funding involves the federal government allocating part of the budget for R & D (research and development) and then allocating it to different institutions. Among them, the main scientific research funding institutions include:
National Institutes of Health (NIH)-the world’s largest biomedical research funding agency;
Department of Defense (DoD)-focuses on defense-related research;
National Science Foundation (NSF)-funds research in various disciplines of science and engineering;
Department of Energy (DOE)-responsible for research in the fields of renewable energy and nuclear physics;
NASA-supports aerospace and aerospace research.
B. How centralized research funding distorts science
Nowadays, it is almost impossible for university professors to conduct research completely independently and must rely on external financial support from governments or companies. This highly centralized scientific research funding system is one of the root causes of many problems in contemporary academic circles.
First of all, the application process for scientific research funds is extremely inefficient. Although the specific operations of different countries and institutions vary, overall, it is the consensus of the global academic community that the process is lengthy, transparent and inefficient.
If a research laboratory wants to obtain funding, it must go through a lot of cumbersome document preparation, repeated applications and strict review, and usually requires layers of approval from the government or enterprises. Top laboratories with high visibility and abundant resources may receive millions or even tens of millions of dollars in grants at one time, so there is no need to apply for funding frequently. But this situation is not common.
For most laboratories, a single grant is usually only tens of thousands of dollars, and researchers have to apply repeatedly, write large amounts of documents, and continue to be reviewed.
Exchanges with graduate friends have shown that many scholars and students are unable to devote themselves to scientific research, but instead occupy a lot of time with funding applications and corporate projects. What is even more helpless is that these corporate cooperation projects are often almost irrelevant to students ‘graduation research, further exposing the inefficiencies and shortcomings of the current scientific research funding system.
Source: NSF
Spending a lot of time applying for research funding may eventually pay off, but unfortunately, obtaining funding is not easy.
According to NSF (National Science Foundation) data, the approval rates for scientific research funding in 2023 and 2024 are 29% and 26% respectively, while the annual median allocation amount for a single project is only US$150,000, which is relatively limited. NIH funding success rates typically range from 15% to 30%. Because a single grant is often difficult to meet the needs of many researchers, they have to repeatedly apply for multiple projects to maintain research operations.
However, the challenges go far beyond that. Personal connections play a key role in securing research funding. To increase funding success rates, professors often tend to work with their peers rather than apply individually. In addition, it is not uncommon for professors to privately lobby informally with funders to gain corporate funding. This reliance on connections and lack of transparency in funding allocation have made it difficult for many early career researchers to enter the academic system.
C. Another big problem with centralized research funding: lack of incentives for long-term research
Long-term scientific research funding for more than 5 years is extremely rare. According to NSF data, most research funding is allocated for only one to five years, and the funding models of other government agencies are basically similar. Corporate R D projects usually provide research funding for 1 to 3 years, with the specific duration depending on the company and the project itself.
Government funding is highly susceptible to political factors. For example, during the Trump administration, defense R & D funding increased significantly; during the Democratic administration, environmental research was often the focus of funding. As government policy priorities change with political agendas, long-term scientific research projects have become rare.
Corporate funding has similar limitations. In 2022, the median tenure of CEOs of companies in the S P 500 index is 4.8 years, and the tenure of other executives is similar. Because companies need to adapt quickly to industry and technological changes, and these executives often dominate the allocation of funds, corporate-funded scientific research projects rarely last for a long time.
D. Short-term trends lead to a decline in the quality of scientific research
The centralized research funding system encourages researchers to choose projects that can quickly produce quantifiable results. In order to ensure continuous funding sources, researchers are forced to produce results within five years, making them more inclined to choose projects that can be completed in a short period of time. This trend has led to a short-term cycle in academia, with very few teams or institutions willing to invest in long-term research for more than 5 years.
In addition, the centralized funding system has also led researchers to focus more on the number of papers than on the quality of research, because short-term research results are often directly linked to funding evaluations. Scientific research can be roughly divided into incremental research (making small improvements to existing knowledge) and breakthrough research (opening up new areas). However, the current funding model is naturally more biased towards the former. Most papers published outside top journals are often only minor supplements to existing research rather than disruptive innovations.
Although the high degree of specialization in modern science has made breakthrough research more difficult, the centralized funding system further exacerbates this problem by further suppressing innovative research. This systematic preference for progressive research has undoubtedly become another obstacle to scientific revolutionary breakthroughs.
Source: Nature
Some researchers even manipulate data or exaggerate research conclusions. The current scientific research funding mechanism requires researchers to hand over results within a very short period of time, which virtually encourages academic misconduct. As a graduate student, I often heard about cases of students in other laboratories falsifying data. Nature has reported that the proportion of withdrawals of academic conferences and journal papers has increased sharply in recent years, reflecting the seriousness of this problem.
E. Don’t get me wrong: Centralized research funding is inevitable
Unlike in the past, scientific research today is highly complex and sophisticated. Even an ordinary graduate student project can cost from several thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars, let alone large-scale scientific research projects such as defense, aerospace or basic physics. The resources they require are growing exponentially.
Therefore, the centralized funding model is still necessary, but how to solve its derivative problems is the key.
2) Systemic challenge 2: Academic journals
A. Commercial operations of academic journals In the cryptocurrency industry, Tether, Circle (stablecoin issuers), BN and Coinbase (centralized trading platforms) are seen as market leaders. Similarly, in academia, academic journals are the most influential power centers, and representatives include:
Elsevier
Springer Nature
Wiley
American Chemical Society (ACS)
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Take Elsevier as an example. The company’s revenue in 2022 will reach US$3.67 billion, net profit will be US$2.55 billion, and net profit margin will reach nearly 70%, far exceeding many technology giants. For example, NVIDIA’s net profit margin in 2024 will be approximately 55-57%, while academic publishers ‘profit margins are even higher.
Springer Nature’s revenue in the first nine months of 2024 has reached US$1.44 billion, which shows the huge scale of the academic publishing industry.
The main sources of income for academic journals include:
Subscription fees: Access to papers in journals usually requires a subscription or payment of access to a single article.
Paper Processing Fee (APC): Many papers are within a paywall, but authors can choose to pay a publication fee to make their papers open access.
Copyright authorization and paper reprinting: In most cases, once a paper is published, the author must transfer the copyright to the journal. Journal publishers make money by selling licenses to educational institutions or commercial companies.
B. Journals: The core of academic interest mismatch
At this point, you may ask: “Why can journals dominate the entire academic community? Isn’t their business model similar to publishers in other industries?”
The answer is no. The business model of academic journals is a typical case of misaligned incentives in academia.
In traditional publishing industries or online platforms, publishers often want to allow creators ‘works to reach a wider audience and share the benefits with creators. However, the model of academic journals is completely tilted towards the publishing house itself, with little practical benefit to researchers and readers.
Although journals play an important role in disseminating scientific research results, their profit model is mainly to benefit publishers, while the interests of researchers and readers are severely undermined.
If readers want to read articles in a journal, they must pay a subscription fee or a single article purchase fee. But if researchers want to publish their papers on Open Access, they will have to pay high paper processing fees (APC) to the journal and will not receive any share of the proceeds.
What’s even more unfair is that not only are researchers not entitled to share the profits after publication, in most cases, once a paper is published, copyright is automatically transferred to the journal, which means that the journal can make profits from the content of the paper completely independently. This system is highly exploitative of researchers and is fundamentally extremely unfair to researchers.
The business model of academic journals not only has serious exploitation problems, but its profit scale is even more alarming. Take Nature Communications (one of the most well-known fully open access journals in the natural sciences) as an example, where authors pay a paper processing fee (APC) of up to US$6,790 for each paper they publish. In other words, researchers must pay their own money to publish papers in Nature Communications, which is sky-high.
Source: ACS
Subscription fees for academic journals are equally prohibitively high. Although institutional subscription fees vary based on the journal’s research field and type, the average annual fee for a single journal under the American Chemical Society (ACS) is as high as $4,908. If an institution subscribes to all ACS journals, the annual fee will be as high as US$170,000.
The average annual fee for a Springer Nature journal is approximately US$10,000, and the full subscription fee is approximately US$630,000. Since most scientific institutions usually subscribe to multiple journals, this makes access costs extremely high for researchers.
C. The biggest problem: Researchers are forced to rely on journals, while funding comes mainly from governments and businesses
What is even more worrying is that researchers are almost “kidnapped” in the academic journal system because they must rely on journals to publish papers to accumulate academic qualifications, and most of the funding for this system actually comes from research funding from the government or companies.
Specifically, the exploitation model of academic journals operates as follows:
Researchers need to continuously publish papers to accumulate academic results in order to obtain more research funding and promote career development.
Research funding for the paper mainly comes from research funding from the government or enterprises, rather than from the researchers ‘own pockets.
Publication costs (APC) for open access papers are also paid for by scientific research funds and not by individual researchers.
Most of the journal subscription fees paid by scientific research institutions also come from scientific research funds provided by the government or enterprises.
Because researchers use external funds most of the time rather than out of their own pocket, they tend not to resist these high fees. Academic journals have taken advantage of this and formed a highly exploitative business model that “charges both authors and readers, while monopolizing the copyright of papers.”
D. Poorly designed peer review process
The problem with academic journals is not just their profit model. The inefficiency and lack of transparency in their publishing process are also worthy of attention. In my six-year academic career, I have published four papers and encountered many problems, especially an inefficient submission process and a peer-review system that relies heavily on luck.
The standard peer review process for most journals typically includes the following steps:
Researchers organize research results, write papers, and submit them to target journals.
Journal editors assess whether the paper meets the scope and basic standards of the journal. If appropriate, the editor will assign 2-3 peer reviewers to review the paper.
Peer reviewers evaluate papers, provide comments and feedback on questions, and make one of four decisions:
Minor Revisions: The paper is basically passed, but minor revisions are needed.
Major Revisions: The paper requires major revisions, and a decision is made whether to accept it.
Reject: The paper is directly rejected and will not be published.
Researchers revise the paper based on the reviewers ‘opinions, and the editor makes the final decision.
Although this process may seem reasonable, it is actually full of inefficiencies, inconsistencies, and relies heavily on subjective judgment, which may weaken the quality and fairness of the review system.
Question 1: The efficiency of review is extremely low. Although the review time may vary in different disciplines, in the fields of natural sciences and engineering, the approximate time from submission of a paper to final decision is as follows:
Desk Reject time: 1 week- 2 months
Time to receive peer review feedback: 3 weeks- 4 months
Time to receive final decision: 3 months- 1 year
If journals or reviewers experience delays, or if the paper requires multiple rounds of review, the entire publication cycle may exceed one year.
For example, in my case, the editor sent my paper to three peer reviewers, but one of the reviewers did not respond, resulting in the journal having to find a new reviewer, adding an additional four months of review time.
To make matters worse, if the paper is rejected after a long review period, the researcher must resubmit it to another journal, which means the entire process needs to be restarted, at least doubling the time.
Such an inefficient publication process is extremely detrimental to researchers, because while waiting for publication, other teams may have published similar research, resulting in a loss of novelty in the paper, which in turn has a serious impact on researchers ‘careers. Question 2: The shortage of reviewers leads to high randomness in the review results. As mentioned above, each paper is usually reviewed by 2-3 reviewers, and whether the paper is ultimately accepted often depends on the opinions of these few people.
Although reviewers are usually experts in the field, the review results still carry a certain element of luck.
Give me my personal experience:
I once submitted a manuscript to a top journal A and received two Major Revisions and one Minor Revisions, but the final paper was still rejected.
Later, I submitted a submission to Journal B, which was slightly inferior, but the result was even worse-one reviewer directly rejected the manuscript, and another reviewer proposed Major Revisions.
Ironically, Journal B has lower academic influence than Journal A, but its review opinions are stricter.
This exposes a problem: paper review relies heavily on the subjective opinions of a small number of reviewers, while journal editors have full choice of reviewers.
In other words, whether the paper can pass depends to some extent on “luck”:
If the reviewer is more tolerant, the paper may pass smoothly;
If the reviewer is harsh, the paper may be rejected directly.
In extreme cases, if the same paper is reviewed by three loose reviewers, it may be accepted, but if reviewed by three strict reviewers, it may be rejected.
It is unrealistic to increase the number of reviewers to improve review fairness, because more reviewers means higher communication costs and longer review times, which is contrary to the journal’s operational goals.
Question 3: The lack of incentives for peer review leads to low review quality. The lack of incentive mechanisms during the peer review process leads to uneven quality of review opinions. The specific situation varies according to the reviewer-some reviewers have a deep understanding of the content of the paper and provide valuable comments and questions; while others do not read the paper carefully, ask questions that have already been answered in the paper, or even give irrelevant criticisms that may eventually lead to the paper being required to be overhauled or directly rejected.
This situation is quite common and has been experienced by many researchers, and ultimately makes them feel that their efforts have been unwarranted.
The root cause of this problem is that peer review does not have any substantial incentives, making quality control extremely difficult.
Currently, after journals receive paper submissions, they usually invite university professors or researchers in related fields to review them. However, even if these reviewers invest the time to read, analyze and write review opinions, they will not get anything in return for it.
From the perspective of a professor or graduate student, peer review is just an extra free burden. The lack of incentives makes many reviewers perfunctory or even unwilling to invest in serious review. Question 4: The lack of transparency in peer review can easily lead to bias. Peer review uses an anonymous mechanism to ensure fairness. However, the problem is that reviewers can see the information of the author of the paper, but the author cannot know the identity of the reviewer.
This information asymmetry can lead to review bias, such as:
“Personal review”-If the author is an acquaintance or academic partner of the reviewer, he may give loose review opinions, and even if the paper is of average quality, it may be accepted.
“Malicious suppression”-If the author of the paper comes from a competing team, the reviewer may deliberately give negative comments or even delay the review time, allowing competitors to miss the opportunity to publish the paper.
This kind of “black box operation” in academia is far more common than people think.
E. The illusion of influencing factors
The last core issue in the journal system is the Citation count.
So, how to evaluate a researcher’s academic achievements and professional abilities? Each researcher’s advantages vary:
Some are good at experimental design,
Some are good at discovering potential research directions,
Others dig deeper into neglected details.
However, it is almost impossible to comprehensively evaluate every researcher in a qualitative manner. Therefore, the academic community generally relies on quantitative indicators to measure researchers ‘academic influence with a simple number, which is mainly reflected in the Citation Count and the H-index.
In academia, researchers with higher H-scores and paper citations are generally considered more successful.
The H-index is a measure of the academic output and influence of researchers. For example:
If a researcher’s H-index is 10, it means he has at least 10 papers, each of which has been cited at least 10 times.
Although the H-index is a common measure of research impact, in the end, citations are still the most important evaluation criterion.
So, how can researchers increase the number of citations?
In addition to publishing high-quality papers, choosing the right research direction is also crucial. The popularity of the research field and the number of researchers will affect the number of citations of the paper-the more researchers there are, the greater the possibility that the paper will be cited, and the higher the number of citations will naturally be.
Source: Clarivate
The above table shows the 2024 Journal Impact Factor (IF) rankings released by Clarivate. The impact factor (IF) represents the average annual number of citations for a paper in a journal. For example, if a journal has an impact factor of 10, papers published in that journal will be cited 10 times per year on average.
After observing the rankings, we can find that journals with high impact factors are mainly concentrated in certain specific research areas, such as cancer, medicine, materials, energy, machine learning, etc. Even in broader subject areas, subfields such as chemistry, batteries and environmental energy, citation rates are usually higher than traditional organic chemistry.
This suggests that academia relies too much on citation times as the main evaluation criterion, which may lead to researchers concentrating in specific hot areas, thus affecting the diversity of research.
In addition, this also reflects that citations and impact factors are not universal standards for measuring the quality of researchers or journals. For example, in journals affiliated with ACS (American Chemical Society):
ACS Energy Letters has an impact factor of 19, while JACS (Journal of the American Chemical Society) has an impact factor of only 14.4, but JACS has long been considered one of the most authoritative journals in the field of chemistry.
Nature is generally considered one of the most ideal journals for researchers to publish, but due to the wide range of research areas it covers, its impact factor is 50.5. In contrast, its subsidiary journal Nature Medicine focuses on the field of medicine, but has an impact factor of 58.7.
F. Publish or Perish
Success stems from failure. Progress in any field requires failure as a stepping stone. The research results published in academia today are usually the accumulation of countless experiments and failed attempts.
However, in modern scientific research, almost all papers report only the results of “successful” experiments, and failed attempts leading to success are often unpublished or even ignored directly.
In a competitive academic environment, researchers have little incentive to report failed experiments because it does nothing to their career development and may even be seen as a waste of time.
3) Systemic challenge 3: Collaboration
In the field of computer software, Open-Source Projects has revolutionized the software development model, making code publicly accessible and encouraging developers around the world to contribute together, resulting in more efficient collaboration and better software products.
However, the trajectory of the scientific community is exactly the opposite.
Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke
In early periods of scientific development such as the 17th century, scientists based on natural philosophy, prioritized sharing knowledge, demonstrated an open and cooperative attitude, and proactively distanced themselves from rigid authoritative systems. For example, despite academic competition between Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke, they still exchanged each other’s research results through letters, criticized and corrected each other, and jointly promoted scientific progress.
In contrast, the research environment of modern science is more closed. Researchers must compete for research funding in fierce competition and strive to publish in high impact Factor journals. Unpublished research is often strictly confidential and external sharing is strongly restricted. Therefore, laboratories in the same research field often regard each other as competitors and lack channels to understand each other’s research progress.
Since most research is gradually advanced based on previous research, it is highly likely that different laboratories will study the same topics in similar time periods. But in the absence of a shared research process, the same research is often carried out in parallel in multiple laboratories. Not only is this extremely inefficient, it also creates a “winner-takes-all” academic environment-the first laboratory to publish research results will receive all academic recognition.
Researchers often encounter situations when they are about to complete their research when they discover that other laboratories have pre-empted the publication of similar research, rendering a lot of their efforts worthless.
In the worst case, even researchers in the same laboratory may conceal experimental data or research results from each other, forming internal competition rather than win-win collaboration.
Today, Open Source culture has become the cornerstone of computer science. The modern scientific community also needs to shift to a more open, cooperative culture to promote the broader public good.
3. How to repair traditional science (TradSci)?
1) Many people have tried to improve
Researchers in the scientific community are well aware of the problems with the current system. However, while these problems are obvious, they are often deep-rooted structural problems that cannot be easily solved by individuals. Despite this, over the years, many attempts have been put into practice to improve the status quo.
A. Restoration of centralized scientific research funding
Fast Grants: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison discovered that traditional research funding processes were inefficient, so he launched the Fast Grants program, raising $50 million to fund hundreds of research projects. The program determines funding decisions within 14 days, with funding sizes ranging from $10,000 to $500,000, providing researchers with relatively considerable support.
Renaissance Philanthropy: Founded by Tom Kalil, who served as a science and technology policy adviser in the Clinton and Obama administrations. It is a non-profit consulting firm that focuses on connecting funders with high-impact science and technology projects. Funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, the organization has a model similar to the Patronage System that European scientists once relied on.
HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute): Unlike traditional project funding models, HHMI uses a unique funding model that directly supports individual researchers rather than specific scientific research projects. This long-term funding model reduces the pressure on researchers for short-term results and allows them to focus on continued scientific exploration.
Experiment.com: This is an online crowdfunding platform that allows researchers to introduce their research to the public and raise necessary funds from individual donors, providing a new model of decentralized research funding.
B. Improving academic journals
PLOS ONE: PLOS ONE is an Open Access scientific journal where anyone can read, download and share papers for free. It evaluates papers based on scientific validity rather than impact, and accepts negative, invalid or inconclusive research results, enjoying a high reputation in the academic community. In addition, its simplified publishing process allows researchers to disseminate research results faster. However, PLOS ONE charges researchers an article processing fee (APC) of US$1,000 – 5,000, which remains a big threshold.
arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, PsyArXiv, SocArXiv: These preprint servers allow researchers to share draft papers before official publication, quickly disseminating research results, declaring research priorities, and providing opportunities for community feedback and collaboration. At the same time, they are free to readers, greatly lowering the threshold for academic acquisition.
Sci-Hub: Founded by Kazakhstan programmer Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan, Sci-Hub aims to bypass journal paywalls and provide free access to papers. Although the site is illegal in most jurisdictions and has faced multiple legal actions from publishers such as Elsevier, it has been praised for promoting academic open access and has also been controversial for violating the law.
C. Improve academic cooperation
ResearchGate: A professional social platform for researchers that provides paper sharing, academic Q & A, and research cooperation opportunities to promote global academic exchanges.
CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research): As a non-profit organization for particle physics research, CERN organizes many large-scale experiments that are difficult to complete in a single laboratory. It brings together researchers from multiple countries and contributes funds based on the GDP of participating countries, forming an international and collaborative scientific research model.
2) DeSci: A new wave of change
Although these attempts have made some progress in improving modern scientific challenges, they have not had a disruptive impact enough to revolutionize the academic system.
In recent years, with the rise of blockchain technology, a new concept called Decentralized Science (DeSci) has begun to attract attention and is seen as a potential solution to these structural problems.
But what exactly is DeSci? Can it really completely reshape the modern scientific system?
4. DeSci appears
1) Overview of DeSci
DeSci (Decentralized Science) aims to turn scientific knowledge into public resources and build a more efficient, fair, transparent and open scientific system by improving research funding, research processes, peer review and research results sharing mechanisms.
Blockchain technology plays a central role in achieving this goal, and its main characteristics include:
Transparency: In addition to the privacy chain, blockchain is essentially open and transparent, and anyone can view transactions on the chain. This feature can enhance the transparency of scientific research funding, peer review and other processes, and reduce black-box operations and unfairness.
Ownership: Blockchain assets are protected by private keys, allowing researchers to easily claim ownership of data, thereby monetizing research results, or asserting the intellectual property (IP) that funds research.
Incentive Scheme: Incentive mechanism is the core of the blockchain network. Through Token incentives, DeSci can encourage researchers to more actively participate in research, review and data sharing, and increase their willingness to cooperate.
Smart Contracts: Smart contracts run on a decentralized network and can automatically perform predetermined operations according to code settings. This feature can manage scientific research cooperation transparently and fairly, and automatically implement interactive logic such as scientific research funding, data sharing, and research incentives.
2) Potential applications of DeSci
As the name suggests, DeSci can be applied to multiple areas of scientific research. ResearchHub divides potential applications of DeSci into the following five directions:
Research DAOs: These decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) focus on specific research topics and use blockchain technology to transparently manage research planning, fund allocation, governance voting, and project operations.
Publishing: Blockchain can decentralize the academic publishing system and completely change the traditional publishing model. Research papers, data and code can be permanently stored on the blockchain, ensuring the credibility of data, allowing free access for all, and encouraging peer review through Tokens to improve the quality and transparency of review.
Research Funding and Intellectual Property (Funding IP): Researchers can easily raise research funding from around the world through the blockchain network. In addition, research projects can be tokenized, allowing Token holders to participate in decision-making on research direction and even share future intellectual property (IP) benefits.
Data: Blockchain provides a secure and transparent storage and management mechanism, supports the sharing and verification of research data, and reduces academic fraud and data tampering.
Infrastructure: Including governance tools, storage solutions, community platforms and identity authentication systems, all of which can be directly integrated into the DeSci project to support the development of a decentralized scientific research ecosystem.
The best way to truly understand DeSci is to delve into specific projects in the DeSci ecosystem and see how they solve structural problems of modern scientific systems. Next, we will focus on representative projects in the DeSci ecosystem.
5. DeSci Ecosystem
Source: ResearchHub
1) Why the Ethereum ecosystem is best for DeSci
Unlike areas such as DeFi, games, and artificial intelligence (AI), the DeSci project is mainly concentrated in the Ethereum ecosystem. The main reasons for this trend include:
Credible Neutrality: Among all smart contract platforms, Ethereum is the most neutral network. The DeSci field involves a large amount of capital flows (such as research funding), so decentralization, fairness, censorship resistance and credibility are crucial. This makes Ethereum the optimal network for building the DeSci project.
Network Effect: Ethereum is the smart contract network with the largest user size and mobility. Compared with other fields, DeSci is still a relatively niche track. If the project is distributed on multiple different public chains, it may lead to liquidity and ecological fragmentation, thus hindering the development of the project. As a result, most DeSci projects choose to be built on Ethereum to take full advantage of its powerful network effects.
DeSci Infrastructure: Few DeSci projects are built completely from scratch, and most use existing DeSci infrastructure (such as Molecule) to accelerate development. Since most of the current DeSci infrastructure tools are based on Ethereum, the projects in this ecosystem are naturally dominated by Ethereum.
For these reasons, the DeSci project introduced in this discussion mainly belongs to the Ethereum ecosystem. Next, we will delve into representative projects in the DeSci field.
2) Research funding and intellectual property (Funding IP)
A. Molecule
Source: Molecule
Molecule is a biopharmaceutical intellectual property (IP) funding and tokenization platform. Researchers can raise funds from multiple individuals through blockchain and tokenize the intellectual property rights of research projects, while funders can receive IP Tokens based on their contribution ratio.
Catalyst is a decentralized research funding platform launched by Molecule to connect researchers and funders.
Researchers need to prepare relevant documents and project plans, and submit research proposals on the Catalyst platform.
Funders can review proposals, select projects to support, and use ETH to provide financial support.
When the project is funded, the platform will issue IP-NFT (Intellectual Property NFT) and IP Tokens, and the funders can claim the corresponding IP Tokens based on their contribution ratio.
Source: Molecule
IP-NFT is an on-chain tokenized version of research project intellectual property (IP) that integrates two legal agreements into a smart contract.
The first legal agreement is a Research Agreement, signed by the researcher and the funder. The content of the agreement includes key terms such as research scope, deliverables, timetable, budget, confidentiality clauses, intellectual property rights and data ownership, paper publication, disclosure of research results, authorization and patent conditions.
The second legal agreement is an Assignment Agreement, which ensures that the rights of the research agreement can be transferred with the ownership change of the IP-NFT, that is, the rights of the current IP-NFT holder can be transferred to the new owner.
IP Tokens represent part of the governance rights of the intellectual property rights of research projects.
Token holders can participate in key research decisions and obtain exclusive research information.
IP Token itself does not directly guarantee the distribution of benefits from research results, but future commercial profits may be decided by IP holders whether to be distributed to IP Token holders.
Source: Molecule
The price of IP Tokens is determined by the Catalyst Bonding Curve, which reflects the relationship between Token supply and price. As more Tokens are issued, the price of Tokens will gradually increase. This mechanism encourages early funders to obtain IP Tokens at a lower cost, thereby making research funding more attractive.
The following are some examples of successful research funding through Molecule:
Fang Laboratory at the University of Oslo: Fang Laboratory focuses on aging and Alzheimer’s disease research, and is funded by VitaDAO through Molecule’s IP-NFT framework to identify and characterize new drug candidates activated by mitochondrial autophagy., which is of great significance to Alzheimer’s disease research.
Artan Bio: Artan Bio focuses on tRNA-related research and has received a US$91,300 scientific research grant from the VitaDAO community through Molecule’s IP-NFT framework.
B. Bio.xyz
Source: Bio.xyz
Bio.xyz is a DeSci domain planning and liquidity agreement similar to an incubator that supports BioDAOs. Its goals include:
Plan, create and accelerate new BioDAOs to fund scientific research along the chain.
Provide long-term funding and liquidity for BioDAOs and on-chain biotechnology assets.
Standardize the BioDAO framework, Token economic model and data/product system.
Promote the generation and commercialization of scientific intellectual property (IP) and research data.
BIO Token holders can vote on which new BioDAOs will add to the ecosystem. When BioDAO is approved to join the BIO ecosystem, BIO Token holders who voted for the BioDAO can participate in its initial auction of tokens raised, similar to a whitelist seed round financing.
Approved BioDAO governance tokens (such as VITA) will be paired with BIO tokens and added to the liquidity pool to resolve BioDAOs liquidity issues on governance tokens (such as VITA/BIO transaction pairs). In addition, Bio.xyz runs the bio/acc reward program to provide BIO Token rewards to BioDAOs that complete key milestones.
In addition, BIO Token is a Meta-Governance Token for multiple BioDAOs, and BIO holders can participate in the governance of multiple BioDAOs. At the same time, Bio.xyz provided US$100,000 in funding to BioDAOs under incubation and obtained 6.9% of their Token supply to increase the asset size (AUM) managed by the agreement and enhance the value of BIO Token.
Bio.xyz uses Molecule’s IP-NFT and IP Tokens framework for intellectual property management. For example, VitaDAO has successfully issued IP Tokens (such as VitaRNA and VITA-FAST) within the Bio ecosystem.
Currently, the research DAOs being incubated by Bio.xyz include:
Cerebrum DAO: Focus on preventing neurodegenerative diseases.
PsyDAO: Dedicated to promoting the evolution of consciousness through safe and accessible hallucinogenic experiences.
cryoDAO: Promote Cryopreservation research.
AthenaDAO: Promoting women’s health research.
ValleyDAO: Supports synthetic biology research.
HairDAO: Collaborate to develop hair loss treatment options.
VitaDAO: Focusing on human longevity research.
C. Summary Bio.xyz is responsible for planning BioDAOs and providing Token economic framework, liquidity services, research funding and incubation support. When BioDAOs intellectual property (IP) within the Bio Ecosystem was successfully commercialized, the value of Bio.xyz’s capital pool increased, forming a virtuous cycle.
3) Research DAOs (Research DAOs)
A. VitaDAO
Among the many research-oriented DAOs, VitaDAO is undoubtedly one of the most well-known. It has attracted widespread attention because it is not only an early project in the DeSci space, but was also led by Pfizer Ventures in 2023.
VitaDAO focuses on longevity and aging research and has so far funded more than 24 projects with more than US$4.2 million in funding. In return, VitaDAO obtains equity in IP-NFT or related companies through the IP-NFT framework at Molecule.xyz
VitaDAO makes full use of the transparency of blockchain, and its Treasury is publicly disclosed. The current total value is approximately US$44 million, including approximately US$2.3 million in equity and US$29 million in Tokenized IP assets. VITA Token holders can participate in governance voting to determine the development direction of the DAO and obtain rights for some medical and health services.
The most representative projects funded by VitaDAO are VitaRNA and VITA-FAST. The IPs of these two projects have been tokenized and are actively traded in the market:
VitaRNA has a market value of approximately US$13 million
VITA-FAST has a market value of approximately US$24 million
Both hold regular meetings with the VitaDAO community to update research progress.
Representative research projects
VitaRNA
The IP Token project led by biotechnology company Artan Bio.
It received funding from VitaDAO in June 2023, and released IP-NFT in January 2024 and split into IP Tokens.
Research focus: Inhibition of arginine nonsense mutations, especially the CGA codon, which is crucial in DNA damage repair, neurodegenerative diseases and tumor suppression-related proteins.
VITA-FAST
The IP Token project is led by the Viktor Korolchuk Laboratory at Newcastle University.
Research focus: Discovery of new autophagy activators.
Autophagy is a cellular process whose decline is believed to be an important cause of biological aging. VITA-FAST aims to explore treatments for anti-aging and related diseases by activating autophagy, ultimately improving human healthy life span (Healthspan).
HairDAO is an open source research and development network where patients and researchers can collaborate to develop hair loss treatments.
According to Scandinavian Biolabs, hair loss affects 85% of men and 50% of women during their lifetime. However, there are extremely limited treatment options available on the market, including only Minoxidil (minoxidil), Finasteride (finasteride) and Dutasteride (dutasteride). It is worth noting that minoxidil was approved by the FDA as early as 1988, and finasteride was approved in 1997.
Even so, these approved treatment options can only slow or temporarily suppress hair loss, but cannot truly cure it. The research and development of hair loss treatments is slow, mainly affected by the following factors:
The causes are complex: Hair loss is caused by multiple factors such as genetics, hormone changes, and immune response, making it extremely challenging to develop effective and targeted treatment options.
HairDAO promotes research and development through decentralized incentive mechanisms:
Patients can receive a HAIR Governance Token as a reward for sharing their treatment experience and data on the HairDAO application.
HAIR Token holders can participate in the DAO governance vote to determine the direction of research funding.
Holders of HAIR Token can enjoy discounts on HairDAO shampoo products.
Staking HAIR Token provides faster access to confidential research data.
C. Other research DAOs
CryoDAO
Focus on Cryopreservation research.
The Treasury has more than US$7 million and has funded 5 research projects.
CRYO Token holders can participate in governance voting and have the opportunity to obtain research breakthroughs and data in advance or exclusively.
ValleyDAO
It aims to address climate challenges by funding synthetic biology research.
Synthetic biology uses organisms to sustainably synthesize nutrients, fuels and drugs and is regarded as a key technology to address climate change.
Several projects have been funded, including research by Professor Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro of Imperial College London.
CerebrumDAO
Focus on brain health research, especially Alzheimer’s disease prevention.
Its Snapshot page displays multiple research proposals seeking funding.
Governance decisions are decentralized, and all funding decisions are voted by DAO members.
4) Published (Publishing)
A. ResearchHub
Source: ResearchHub
ResearchHub is currently the leading academic publishing platform in the field of DeSci, with the goal of becoming the “GitHub of the scientific community”. The platform was founded by Coinbase CEOs Brian Armstrong and Patrick Joyce and completed a US$5 million Series A financing in June 2023, led by Open Source Software Capital.
ResearchHub provides open scientific publishing and discussion tools, and uses RSC (ResearchCoin) Token to encourage researchers to publish papers, conduct peer review, and plan academic content.
Its core functions include:
Funding (Grants)
Source: ResearchHub
Users can use RSC Token to create grants (Grants) and request other ResearchHub users to complete specific tasks. The main funding types include:
Peer Review: Request review of the manuscript of the paper.
Answer to Question: Request answers to specific questions.
Research funding (Funding).
Source: ResearchHub
In the Funding tab, researchers can upload research proposals and receive RSC Token funding from users.①. Journals (Journals)
Source: ResearchHub
Journals partially archive papers from peer-reviewed journals and preprint servers. Users can browse academic literature and participate in discussions. However, many peer-reviewed papers are restricted to paywalls, and users can often only view abstracts written by others.
②. Research Center (Hubs)
Source: ResearchHub
The Research Center (Hubs) archives preprinted papers classified by discipline. All papers in this section are open access, allowing anyone to read the entire content and participate in the discussion.
③. Lab Notebook The laboratory notebook is an online collaborative workspace that allows multiple users to write papers together. Similar to Google Docs or Notion, this feature supports seamless integration into ResearchHub and direct release.
④. RH Journal
Source: ResearchHub
RH Journal is ResearchHub’s own academic journal. The journal has an efficient peer review process with a review cycle of 14 days and the final decision is completed within 21 days. In addition, it also introduces a peer review incentive mechanism to solve the problem of mismatch of incentive mechanisms in traditional peer review systems.
RSCToken（RSC Token）
Source: ResearchHub
RSC Token (RSC Token) is the ERC-20 Token in the ResearchHub ecosystem, with a total supply of 1 billion. RSC Token is designed to promote user engagement and support ResearchHub to implement a fully decentralized open platform.
The main uses of RSC Token include:
Governance Voting
Tipping other users
Bounty Programs
Incentives for Peer Reviewers
Rewards for Curating Research Papers
B. ScieNFT
ScieNFT is a decentralized preprint server that allows researchers to publish research results in NFT format. The content that can be published is not limited to papers, but also includes images, research ideas, datasets, works of art, research methods, and even negative experimental results.
ScieNFT adopts a decentralized storage solution. Preprint data is stored on IPFS and Filecoin, while NFT assets are uploaded to Avalanche C-Chain.
Although using NFT to track the attribution and traceability of research results is an advantage, ScieNFT also has some problems:
The actual value and purpose of purchasing these NFTs are unclear.
The lack of effective market curatorial mechanism affects content quality management.
C. deScier
Source: deScier
D. deScier
deScier is a decentralized scientific journal platform. Like traditional publishers like Elsevier or Springer Nature, deScier also hosts multiple journals.
On the deScier platform, 100% of the copyright of all papers belongs to researchers, and peer review remains a necessary process.
However, the main issues facing the platform are:
Journals publish a small number of papers.
The slow upload speed of papers affects the frequency of content updates.
5) Data (Data)
A. Data LakeData Lake’s software allows researchers to integrate multiple user recruitment channels, track their effectiveness, manage data consent, and conduct pre-screening surveys, while ensuring users have control over their own data.
The platform allows researchers to share and easily manage consent to use patient data so that third parties can access the data in reasonable compliance.
Data Lake uses Data Lake Chain, an L3 network based on Arbitrum Orbit that is specifically used to manage consent to use patient data.
B. Welshare Health
Source: Welshare Health
In traditional medicine research, one of the biggest bottlenecks is the slow recruitment of clinical trial participants and insufficient patient numbers. In addition, patient medical data, although highly valuable, is at risk of being abused. Welshare aims to solve these issues through Web3 technology.
Patients can safely manage personal medical data and monetize it to generate revenue while receiving personalized medical services.
Medical researchers can more easily access diverse data sets, accelerating medical research.
Welshare uses a Base Network-based app to allow users to selectively provide data to earn in-app reward points, which can be redeemed for cryptocurrency or fiat currency.
C. Hippocrat
Hippocrat is a decentralized medical data protocol that allows individuals to securely manage their health data using blockchain and zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology.
Its first product, HippoDoc, is a telemedicine application that combines medical databases, artificial intelligence (AI) technology and professional medical staff support to provide medical consultation to patients.
Throughout the consultation process, patient data is securely stored on the blockchain, ensuring privacy protection and data security.
6) DeSci Infrastructure
A. Ceramic
Ceramic is a Decentralized Event Streaming Protocol that developers can use to create decentralized databases, distributed computing pipelines, authentication data streams and other functions. Due to its characteristics, Ceramic is very suitable for use in the DeSci project, allowing it to run as a decentralized database:
Data on the Ceramic network can be accessed without permission, so researchers can share and collaborate data to improve scientific research efficiency.
Operations such as research papers, citations, and reviews are represented on the Ceramic Network as “Ceramic Streams”, and each stream can only be modified by its creator account, thereby ensuring intellectual property (IP) traceability.
Ceramic also provides a verifiable claims infrastructure that allows the DeSci project to adopt its reputation management system to enhance scientific trust mechanisms.
B. bloXberg
BloXberg is a dedicated blockchain infrastructure for scientific research, led by the Max Planck Digital Library in Germany. Cooperation institutions include well-known research institutions such as ETH Zurich, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and the IT University of Copenhagen.
bloXberg aims to promote innovation in scientific research processes, and its application areas include:
research data management
Peer Review (Peer Review)
intellectual property protection
By decentralizing these processes through blockchain technology, bloXberg improves the transparency and efficiency of scientific research. Researchers can securely share and collaborate scientific data to ensure the credibility and immutability of the data.
6. Is DeSci really a universal antidote?
We have explored the structural problems of modern scientific systems and how DeSci is trying to solve them. But the question is-can DeSci really completely disrupt the scientific community and become a core force, as the crypto community claims?
I don’t think so. However, DeSci does have the potential to play a supporting role in specific areas.
1) What can blockchain solve and what cannot be solved
Blockchain is not magic, it cannot solve all problems. Therefore, we need to clearly distinguish between problems that blockchain can solve and problems that cannot be solved. A. Funding DeSci has advantages in the following funding scenarios:
Small-scale research grants
Research with commercialization potential
The scale of scientific research funding varies widely, ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to millions, or even tens of millions of dollars. For large-scale research projects, centralized funding from the government or enterprises is inevitable. However, it is feasible for small-scale research to raise funds through the DeSci platform.
For researchers engaged in small-scale research, the lengthy application process and cumbersome documentation work are a heavy burden. In this case, the fast and efficient financing method provided by the DeSci funding platform is extremely attractive.
But then again, if you want to receive financial support from the public through the DeSci platform, research projects need to have reasonable commercial prospects, such as patents or technology transfers. Only when there is an expectation of return on investment can the public be motivated to fund these projects.
However, most of the research in modern scientific research is not aimed at commercialization, but serves the technological competitiveness of countries or enterprises.
Therefore, the research areas most suitable for raising funds through the DeSci platform include:
Biotechnology (Biotech)
Healthcare
Pharmaceuticals
This logic is based on which most DeSci projects currently focus on these areas. Once research in these industries is successful, it is highly likely to be commercialized. In addition, although the final commercialization stage requires huge capital investment, relatively little capital is required in the early stages of research, making the DeSci platform ideal for early financing.
B. Can DeSci support long-term research?
I’m skeptical that DeSci can really drive long-term research.
It is true that a small number of researchers may receive long-term funding from public welfare or voluntary donations, but this culture is unlikely to spread widely throughout the scientific community.
Even if the DeSci platform leverages blockchain, there is no causal link that suggests it can support long-term research funding.
If you insist on finding a connection between blockchain and long-term research, you may be able to consider “milestone funding” based on smart contracts, that is, funds will be gradually unlocked when research reaches a certain stage.
C. Journals (Journals)
In theory, the area where DeSci is most likely to bring innovation is academic journals. Through smart contracts and Token incentives, DeSci may restructure its profit model monopolized by traditional journals and focus on researchers. However, in reality, this change will be extremely challenging.
For researchers, publishing a paper is the most critical factor in their academic career. In academia, researchers ‘abilities are mainly measured by the journal rank they publish, the number of citations (Citation Count) and the h-index.
Human instinct relies on authority, which has not changed since prehistoric times to modern times. For example, if an unknown researcher can publish a paper in a top journal such as Nature, Science or Cell, he may become famous overnight.
Although ideally, evaluation of researchers should be based on “quality” rather than “quantity”, qualitative evaluation relies too much on peer recommendations, ultimately making quantitative evaluation inevitable.
Because of this, academic journals have great power. Even if they monopolize the profit model, researchers still have to obey.
If DeSci journals want to gain greater influence, they must establish authority. However, with Token incentives alone, it is almost impossible to achieve the academic reputation accumulated by traditional journals over the past century.
While DeSci may not be able to completely disrupt the academic journal system, it does have a role in specific areas, such as peer Review and negative results.
Peer review issues: As mentioned earlier, current peer reviews have few incentive mechanisms, resulting in low review quality and efficiency.
Providing Token rewards can encourage reviewers to improve the quality of reviews and thereby improve journal standards.
Publication of negative research results: Currently, academic circles rarely publish negative results, but if a DeSci journal is specially set up to publish negative research results, combined with Token incentives, researchers will be more motivated to disclose failed experimental data.
Since the reputation impact of negative research journals is small, combined with Token incentives, this model may achieve better development.
D. Collaboration
In my opinion, blockchain is unlikely to significantly improve the fierce competition in modern science. Different from the past, today’s researchers are huge, every academic achievement directly affects career development, and competition has become an inevitable reality. It is unrealistic to expect blockchain to solve cooperation problems across the scientific community.
On the other hand, within small research groups such as research-oriented DAOs, blockchain can effectively promote cooperation.
In the DAO system, researchers can align interests through the Token incentive mechanism and jointly realize their vision.
Research results can be recorded via blockchain timestamps to ensure contributions are recognized.
I hope that in the future, we will see the growth and increased activity of research-based DAOs not only in the field of biotechnology (Biotech), but also in more disciplines.
7. Conclusion: DeSci needs a “Bitcoin moment”
The modern scientific community faces many structural challenges, and DeSci provides a solution that deserves attention. Although DeSci may not be able to completely disrupt the entire scientific system, it can gradually attract researchers and users who truly benefit from it and achieve steady expansion.
Eventually, we may see a balance point where traditional science (TradSci) and decentralized science (DeSci) coexist.
Just as Bitcoin was originally regarded as a geek toy, but now it has attracted many traditional financial institutions, I hope DeSci will also gain recognition in its long-term development and usher in its “Bitcoin moment.”
原文链接
