Introduction:

DeSci, or Decentralized Science, provides a fair, transparent and decentralized platform for the funding, creation, review, confirmation, storage and dissemination of scientific research through blockchain technology and smart contracts. Its goal is to break down the funding barriers in traditional scientific research, promote collaboration among scientists around the world, and ensure the openness and transparency of research data.

What is Decentralized Science (DeSci)?

Decentralized Science (DeSci) is an innovative movement aimed at changing the traditional scientific research model. By introducing blockchain and Web3 technology, DeSci is committed to building a more fair, transparent, open and collaborative research ecosystem. The core of this concept is to use decentralized tools and technologies to redefine the funding of scientific research, the sharing of knowledge, and the dissemination of academic results.

The essence of DeSci is to solve a series of problems faced by the field of traditional science (TradSci), rather than just advocating the concept of "open science". Compared with the open science movement, DeSci pays more attention to the application of technology in rebuilding the relationship between scientific research ecology, emphasizing the use of blockchain functions such as tokens, NFTs and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to break the centralized monopoly model and establish a more dynamic and inclusive scientific research system.

Currently, DeSci's goals focus on the following aspects:

Construction of incentive mechanism: Provide researchers with motivation to share their research results and recognize their academic value through a reputation system.
Decentralized review and funding: Break the monopoly of traditional centralized institutions on scientific research funding allocation and results review, and adopt a community-driven approach to allocate resources so that more valuable projects can receive support.
Lower the threshold for scientific research: allow more people to access scientific knowledge, contribute to scientific research, and promote the democratization of scientific research.
Transparent research process: Ensure that all aspects of the research are open and transparent, and increase academic integrity and trust.

Through these innovative means, DeSci attempts to break the imbalance between information flow and resource allocation in traditional scientific research and make scientific research more open and efficient. It not only provides new tools and platforms for researchers, but also creates opportunities for the global community to participate in scientific research.

Essentially, DeSci advocates the idea that science should be accessible to everyone and that scientific knowledge should be open and transparent. With the power of Web3 technology, this movement is pushing science from the traditional centralized model to an open, collaborative, technology-driven new era.

How does DeSci solve the pain points of traditional scientific research?

The current economic model of scientific research has obvious structural drawbacks. In theory, funders, scientists and publishers should work together to promote the development, dissemination and application of scientific research. However, the reality is far from this - the three core links of funders allocating funds, scientists conducting research, and publishers disseminating results are separated from each other. As independent economic interest entities, they are more driven by individual interests rather than the overall goals of the scientific research community. This situation leads to inefficient resource allocation and hindered sharing of results, which hinders the healthy development of scientific research.

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 Traditional scientific research economic model, image from: Messari Research

DeSci was born to address this dilemma. It aims to break the interest silos and efficiency bottlenecks in traditional science and reshape the scientific research ecosystem by introducing blockchain and Web3 technologies. DeSci targets one of the core issues of traditional scientific research - the "valley of death". This concept refers to the critical fault period between basic scientific research and the successful transformation of its results into innovations that can benefit society. In the traditional model, due to insufficient funding, closed data and inefficient collaboration, many potential research projects died at this stage and failed to make actual contributions to society.

DeSci addresses these gaps through the following innovative approaches:

Efficient funding allocation mechanism: Utilize decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and tokenized economic models to provide transparent and efficient funding support for scientific research projects and avoid waste of resources.
Data sharing and collaboration: Establish an open scientific research data platform to make the acquisition and use of research data more convenient, break down information silos, and promote cross-domain collaboration.
Disruptive publishing model: Using blockchain technology to decentralize the academic publishing process, ensuring the transparency and verifiability of results, while reducing publishing costs and reducing the monopoly influence of traditional publishers.
Shorten the distance between basic research and application: By introducing a community-driven scientific cooperation model, we can accelerate the transformation of research results and increase the actual contribution of scientific research to society.

In general, DeSci is not only repairing the deficiencies in traditional scientific research, but also building a new paradigm for scientific research. In this model, stakeholders are no longer separated from each other, but achieve deeper collaboration through technical means to jointly promote the openness, transparency and efficiency of scientific research. This provides a new way of thinking for solving scientific research pain points and opens up more possibilities for the future of science.

How is the DeSci track developing?

As an emerging track, DeSci's development direction covers multi-dimensional innovation paths. According to the analysis of Messari Research, the current DeSci project ecosystem can be divided into multiple sub-sectors, including financing, research, data management, peer review, publishing, infrastructure and services, open science ecology, art, and community building. As of July 2023, the number of active DeSci projects has reached 85, and some projects even cover multiple sub-sectors at the same time. The rise of these projects is concentrated in the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, which is closely related to the DeSci symposium held at LisCon in October 2021. In addition, the crypto market boom at the time also provided strong support for the rapid development of DeSci.

The current DeSci track presents three significant characteristics: First, most projects use DAO as an organizational form, and achieve community-driven and resource allocation through decentralized autonomous organizations; second, financing issues are the main focus of the DeSci project, using Web3's digital asset tools to efficiently raise funds and promote the development of scientific research projects; finally, biotechnology, especially the field of life health and longevity, is the core application scenario of DeSci. Whether it is the funding support for basic research or the "valley of death" problem in drug development, DeSci provides innovative solutions.

How is the market value performance of the DeSci project?

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In terms of capital market performance, the DeSci project is still in its infancy. According to CoinGecko data, the total market value of tokens in the DeSci field has exceeded US$2.6 billion. However, compared with other Web3 tracks, the overall market value of the DeSci project is generally lower, which is mainly caused by the following factors:

DeSci is still in the early exploratory phase with a limited number of projects;
Many tokens are designed more for project financing and reinvestment, and their circulation is limited, so they rarely enter the secondary market;
DeSci’s target audience is relatively niche, and the combination of scientific research and Web3 attracts more specific audiences in professional fields;
The close connection with the real world makes DeSci more inclined to practical applications rather than pure financial speculation, which limits the market speculation space for its tokens.

At present, although the total market value of the DeSci project has not yet formed a scale effect, its influence is gradually expanding, especially among users who are concerned about scientific research innovation and solving traditional pain points. In the future, as more projects are implemented and scientific research results are transformed, DeSci's performance in the capital market is expected to gradually rise, bringing greater development potential for the integration of science and Web3.

What are the representative projects of the DeSci track?

1) Molecule

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Molecule was founded in 2021 and is a decentralized protocol dedicated to subverting the traditional biotechnology R&D model. The project aims to establish a new financing ecosystem for early biological research and introduce biotechnology intellectual property (IP) to the chain in an innovative way, creating the concept of IP-NFT and is known as the "OpenSea in the field of biotechnology."

Core technology: IP-NFT protocol

Molecule's IP-NFT (Intellectual Property Non-Fungible Token) protocol is a new tool that combines law and smart contracts to combine and tokenize the legal rights, data access rights, and economic value of biological research projects on-chain. This mechanism provides researchers and funders with a new model of cooperation, making the ownership and distribution of intellectual property rights more transparent and efficient.

Molecule Marketplace: Connecting Research and Capital

Based on IP-NFT, Molecule has built a market for translational research, aiming to promote efficient docking between researchers and funders. On the Molecule Discovery platform, researchers can submit research proposals, and funders can evaluate the proposals and negotiate the terms of cooperation with the research team. In this way, Molecule provides strong support for the transformation of basic research into practical applications, and promotes the rapid implementation of medical research from theory to practice.

BioDAO Launchpad: Incubating Biotech DAOs

To further promote the development of the decentralized biotech ecosystem, Molecule launched the Bio.xyz incubator platform. This platform focuses on building and incubating new bioscience DAOs (BioDAOs), which are decentralized organizations based on IP-NFTs that bring together patients, researchers, and enthusiasts to provide financial support for medical research in specific fields.

Molecule’s incubator provides up to $100,000 in seed funding to each early-stage BioDAO project, including several known success stories, such as:

VitaDAO: The world's first decentralized biotech DAO focused on longevity research and the largest funder on the Molecule platform.
AthenaDAO: Research and funding focused on women’s health.
HairDAO: Dedicated to scientific research to solve the problem of hair loss.

Ecosystem construction and future prospects

Molecule not only helps researchers obtain early funding through its innovative IP-NFT model and a strong ecological support network, but also promotes the popularization of decentralized biotechnology. So far, Molecule has successfully helped multiple projects move from basic research to practical applications. In addition, through cooperation with organizations such as AthenaDAO and VitaDAO, Molecule is building a biotechnology ecosystem with innovation and openness at its core.

Tokenization and Market Dynamics

Molecule's IP-NFT market has attracted many research institutions and funders to join, and has achieved efficient capital circulation on decentralized trading platforms such as Uniswap. Molecule's vision is to further expand its ecosystem, make the biotechnology research and development process more transparent, open and efficient, and provide impetus for the future development of global health technology.

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Molecule and BIO Protocol are the backbone of the DeSci track, focusing on promoting the decentralization of scientific research. These projects, with different innovation directions and token mechanisms, jointly build the ecological foundation of DeSci:

VitaDAO ($VITA): VitaDAO is a community-driven decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focused on providing early funding support for longevity research. VitaDAO proposes a new solution to the current situation of early funding shortages and technology monopoly in the traditional biopharmaceutical field, especially in longevity research. By introducing blockchain and cryptoeconomic incentive mechanisms, VitaDAO is committed to helping scientific research projects in the field of longevity obtain critical initial funding support. In return, VitaDAO will directly hold the intellectual property (IP) and data rights of the supported research results and integrate these rights into a publicly accessible asset portfolio. The organization promotes the further development and utilization of these intellectual property rights through the data market or the authorization and commercialization path of traditional biopharmaceuticals, while tokenizing assets and issuing native governance tokens - $VITA. Individuals or organizations can obtain $VITA tokens by contributing work, funds or other resources (such as data or intellectual property). Owners holding $VITA can participate in the curation and governance of VitaDAO assets and their research.

This model not only reduces the risk of technological monopoly, but also provides a new way for the disclosure and wide application of research results, and promotes the in-depth integration of scientific research and blockchain technology.

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 VitaDAO ecosystem, image from: VitaDAO Whitepaper

Project founder Tyler Golato is also the co-founder of VitaDAO, Molecule, and BIO Protocol. Paul Kohlhaas, the author of the VitaDAO white paper, is not only the administrator of the token economics working group and a member of the technical and legal working group, but also the founder and CEO of the DeSci project Molecule and BIO Protocol. He has worked for the ConsenSys fund, and Vita DAO has also received the first investment in web3 from Pfizer, the medical investment department of Pfizer.

On November 13, 2024, Binance founder CZ posted a post on the social platform X, "Learning at a small DeSci entrepreneur gathering organized by Binance Labs," and attached a photo of himself and Vitalik. At the event, Vitalik also showed CZ VitaDAO's first longevity product, VD001, a natural high-dose spermidine supplement approved by the Thai FDA.

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BIO Protocol ($BIO): As the first project in the DeSci field to receive investment from Binance Labs, BIO Protocol has attracted widespread attention. In addition to Binance Labs, the project has also received strong support from several well-known venture capital institutions in the fields of encryption and biotechnology, including 1kx, Boost VC, Sora Ventures, Zee Prime Capital, and Northpond Ventures, a biotech fund with a scale of more than US$3 billion. In November 2024, BIO Protocol successfully completed the community financing of the Genesis Phase with a total amount of US$30.3 million, marking an important step for the project in terms of community support and decentralized governance.

The core mission of BIO Protocol is to promote the rapid development of biotechnology. Through this agreement, patients, scientists and biotechnology professionals around the world can jointly participate in funding, building, and sharing tokenized biotechnology projects and intellectual property (IP), thereby injecting more possibilities into the field of biotechnology innovation; BIO Protocol's Launchpad platform will provide more efficient financing and liquidity support for innovative projects in the DeSci field, and accelerate the implementation of biotechnology by promoting the creation and development of BioDAO. Project founder Paul Kohlhaas revealed that BIO's Launchpad and token transfer functions are scheduled to be officially launched in the first quarter of 2025.

BIO Protocol’s native token $BIO is a key component of the ecosystem and has multiple functions:

Token staking: Holders can lock $BIO and convert it to vBIO for voting and governance.
Rewards: After successfully backing the winning BioDAO, stakers will receive additional $BIO rewards and priority access to funding rounds.

$BIO Token Economics

56% allocated to ecology and community
25.4% allocated to early contributors
18.6% allocated to early supporters

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 $BIO token distribution, image from: BIO Protocol official website

After $BIO opened on January 3, the price quickly surged to a high of $1.477, but selling pressure subsequently caused the price to fall. As of the time of writing, the price has fallen back to $0.6921, and the FDV exceeds $2.3 billion.

ResearchCoin ($RSC): ResearchCoin is the native token of the ResearchHub platform, which aims to accelerate scientific research by rewarding users for sharing, discussing and curating academic content. Platform users can earn $RSC by contributing to academic resources.

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AthenaDAO ($ATH): AthenaDAO focuses on scientific research, education, and funding in the field of women’s health. It has funded over $500,000 to date and has 14 intellectual property transactions pending.

ValleyDAO ($GROW): ValleyDAO is a decentralized organization focused on the research and development of anti-aging and longevity drugs, with the goal of accelerating innovation in the life sciences through interdisciplinary collaboration.

2)Pump.Science ($URO & $RIF)

Pump.Science is a project that has attracted much attention in the DeSci sector recently due to its Meme concept. Its core tokens $URO and $RIF are known as the two leading DeSci Meme sectors. $URO (UrolithinA) is based on a metabolite naturally found in pomegranates and nuts, which has the potential to prolong life; while $RIF (Rifampicin) focuses on the concept of antibiotics, which is a widely used antibiotic known as "rifampicin". Driven by multiple sources of information, the performance of these two tokens has been exceptionally good recently: $URO's market value has exceeded 48 million US dollars, and the current price is $0.048. The price has retreated within 24 hours, a drop of about 20%; the total market value of $RIF tokens is 45.53 million US dollars, and the current price is $0.045, a 24-hour drop of 12%.

3) DeSci Meme: ($ANTI & $PRO)

$$ANTI$$PRO is a Meme token combination initiated by algorithm engineer and mathematical physics expert @sshmatrix_ to express support ($PRO) or opposition ($ANTI) to Meme Token. The unique design of these two tokens has attracted a large number of Meme enthusiasts and has also sparked widespread discussion in the quantum computing community. At present, these two tokens have a certain liquidity on decentralized trading platforms, and the mechanism of 1 $ANTI = 1 $PRO gives them unique market value. The market value of $ANTI and $PRO is only US$1.71 million and US$1.93 million, and the current coin prices are $0.0019363 and $0.0017073, respectively. The prices have retreated by about 5% within 24 hours.

4) Donation concept: Sci-Hub ($scihub)

$$Scihub is a community-driven meme token created by @0xAA_Science to support the open source scientific research paper website Sci-Hub. Sci-Hub is a platform dedicated to free sharing of academic resources, known as the "shadow library". $$Scihub's design is inspired by its spirit and provides a new way for open sharing of academic research in a decentralized way. Currently, $Scihub can be traded on PancakeSwap, attracting many community members who support open science and educational resource sharing.

5) Artificial Intelligence Neural Network: DeepWorm ($WORM)

DeepWorm is an innovative project that combines artificial intelligence with DeSci, introducing biological neural structures into the blockchain. By building a neural network inspired by the 302 neurons of C. elegans, DeepWorm is developing the first verifiable on-chain digital organism, opening up a new area of intersection between digital biology and blockchain.

Project Highlights

Digital Biology: Developing self-aware digital entities that mimic biological nervous systems.
Blockchain Integration: All neural processes are fully transparent and verifiable, with permanent records achieved through on-chain technology.
Biomimetic Design: Faithfully reproducing the neural structure and behavioral patterns of Caenorhabditis elegans.
Autonomous Systems: Build autonomous currency systems and smart contracts based on evolutionary neural networks to promote innovation in on-chain applications.

Technical Implementation

Currently, DeepWorm runs the Nematoduino model on the Hyperliquid EVM testnet, using Marlin TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) technology:

Users can query the worm's nerve and muscle status and its coordinate changes through the Web2 interface;
DeepWorm regularly uploads snapshots of these data to the chain, providing basic building blocks for third-party smart contracts and further developing innovative on-chain applications.

6) Metasci ($METASCI): The token of the Metasci project, which focuses on integrating AI and scientific research, aims to optimize the scientific research process through AI and promote the technological revolution.

7) The first DeSci project in the SUI ecosystem: SUI Desci Agents ($DESCI)

The SUI ecosystem has risen rapidly in this cycle. The FDV of $43 billion, the booming ecosystem, and the coin price that has risen more than 8 times during the cycle have brought a lot of attention to the SUI chain and its ecology. As the first Desci project on SUI, SUI Desci Agents is ready to use the scalability of the SUI chain and the developer-friendly Move programming language to revolutionize decentralized science; it plans to build a DeSci token launch platform similar to Pump.fun in the DeSci field, and promote Desci investment opportunities to retail investors in the simplest and most direct way; the official website information shows that $DESCI will soon be publicly sold on Ape Terminal.

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DeSci is still in its early stages of development, and the actual impact of its innovation is relatively limited, mainly in areas such as scientific research funding and data sharing. However, the widespread application of token-based incentive collaboration mechanisms in core scientific links (such as peer review) has not yet been realized. At the same time, the DeSci project operated in the DAO model also faces challenges in organizational efficiency and business model.

Despite this, DeSci has introduced a new way of thinking to the field of scientific research: it not only breaks the limitations of traditional scientific research funding, but also alleviates the problem of scientific research data islands to a certain extent. More importantly, DeSci has achieved global interdisciplinary collaboration without trust endorsement for the first time with the help of decentralized technology, as well as a more democratic and open scientific research participation model. Especially in promoting open science and universal science, DeSci has demonstrated its unique advantages. This transformation may have a profound impact on the development of modern science and inject more possibilities and vitality into the future scientific research ecosystem.

Conclusion:

Although DeSci is still in its early stages, the field shows great potential as investment and attention increase. DeSci is not just a technological innovation, but also a subversion of the scientific research paradigm, which may change the way scientific research is organized and incentivized in the next few years. There are already some DeSci concept tokens on the market that have performed well, indicating the growth potential of this field.

Challenges facing DeSci include regulatory compliance, balancing the long-term nature of scientific research with the short-term speculative nature of the cryptocurrency market, and public awareness of its value. However, DeSci also offers great opportunities, such as improving access to funding for scientific research, promoting open science, and increasing accessibility and fairness in science.

BIO Protocol’s new proposal to enable transferability of BIO tokens is now open for voting

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