Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily
In the gradually recovering crypto market, BIO, once the "beacon of the DeSci track," has also delivered an impressive performance: its price once broke through $0.066 on May 3, doubling in just three days. Nearly a year and a half after the DeSci (Decentralized Science) boom of late 2024, Bio Protocol, once hailed as a "Binance Launchpool project," has also embraced the AI era, proclaiming the slogan "Agent Pays for Science." Whether this is an old tree blossoming again or a pump-and-dump scheme, we may soon see the answer.
Bio Protocol's Old and New Narratives: From DeSci to Agentic DeSci
In my opinion, the most important reason for BIO's price increase is that it has found a new narrative that aligns with the AI era—from decentralized scientific research to AI Agents and agent-driven decentralized scientific research.
This is not merely a further refinement of market positioning, but also a significant step in injecting new vitality into the Bio Protocol ecosystem. Specifically, Bio Protocol's key actions are as follows:
- BioXP System : Built on the Bio Protocol V2 staking system, the BioXP system can be used to prioritize participation in Ignition Sales (initial public offerings), increase allocation amounts, and accumulate veBIO (governance votes). This forms the foundational framework for the long-term development of the ecosystem.
- Funding Support : In September of last year, Bio Protocol completed a $6.9 million seed round, led by Arthur Hayes' Maelstrom Fund, with participation from Mechanism Capital, Animoca Brands, Presto Labs, and others. The funding will be used to advance its AI-driven Launchpad and BioAgents. Previously, it also received investment from Yzi Labs (formerly Binance Labs). Sufficient funding is essential for continued development throughout market cycles.
- BioAgent Launchpad: Built on the BioAgents platform , the Launchpad emphasizes the concept of "allowing anyone to deploy DeSci AI agents." The latest IPO project, PeptAI, launched on May 1st, and within 30 minutes, it was oversubscribed 5.9 times. As of May 4th, it had been oversubscribed 12.7 times (US$633,000; with a token FDV of US$1 million and a token price of US$0.1), currently attracting over 700 participants. The 14-day event ends at 9 PM on May 14th. Regarding token distribution: 20% of the total PEPTAI supply will be airdropped to BIO stakers (veBIO holders, linearly released over 6 months); 5% will be publicly offered through an Ignition Sale; those without BioXP can directly supplement their supply using BIO mints or staking. Thus, through the Launchpad mechanism, Bio Protocol has formed a positive cycle of "staking BIO tokens → earning BioXP points → participating in project launches → participating in community governance".
According to official data , the Bio ecosystem has raised over $50 million and has approximately 90,000 community members.
Driven by the new flywheel effect, the BIO token continued its upward trend in just three days, soaring from around $0.03 to $0.066, before temporarily falling back to around $0.06 .
Of course, narrative updates and project iterations are one aspect; another focus of market attention is the Bio Protocol team's proactive market making or pump-and-dumping tactics.
Pumping up prices to sell off or actively making market makers? A perspective on the ambitions of the Bio Protocol team.
On the morning of May 3rd, according to crypto analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa), BIO had surged 118% in the past week. That day, the Bio Protocol project team transferred 120 million BIO tokens from a multi-signature address to three addresses, with approximately 80 million tokens going to OKX and Binance, worth about $5.031 million.
On the other hand, Binance had previously announced that it would add trading pairs such as BIO/U to isolated margin trading on April 28, 2026 at 16:00 (UTC+8), which further fueled the rise of BIO at the leveraged contract level.
Currently, the BIO token's market capitalization is estimated at $127 million, significantly lower than its peak of $1.1 billion in early 2025. Furthermore, the Bio Protocol team's move has not had a substantial impact on the BIO price. Considering the overall cryptocurrency market's significant rebound to over $80,000, the BIO price is expected to continue rising.
Furthermore, and more importantly, the research related to PEPTAI, the latest IPO project in the Bio Protocol ecosystem, has entered the wet experiment stage and operates in the mode of "AI Agent autonomous decision-making + on-chain information disclosure". To a certain extent, this has truly pushed the DeSci track, which has previously focused more on the proof-of-concept stage, into the real business stage of "replicable drug discovery production line".
From this perspective, the Bio Protocol team's ambitions have never been small. After all, they are targeting a trillion-dollar healthcare market.
Of course, considering the niche nature and compliance barriers of the DeSci track, in the short term, the price trend of BIO token will still be highly dependent on hype.
