In the 80s and 90s, researchers began proposing modern prediction markets for the sake of political & economic forecasting. The University of Iowa even launched a prediction market in 1988 for academic purposes.
In the early 2000s, the idea of using prediction markets to forecast scientific outcomes began to gain traction. Researchers proposed that these markets could aggregate expert opinions and data to predict the results of scientific experiments and discoveries, particularly in terms of things like reproducibility. It’s well known today that science suffers a huge reproducibility problem, and prediction markets have long been proposed as a potential solution to that problem.
Prediction markets serve as a global schelling point where the wisdom of the crowd is aggregated to generate truth.
Still, prediction markets have never really been widely adopted in science. Professor Robin Hanson argues that academia always cared more about prestige than procedural optimization, which is why grants were adopted instead of retroactive prize based funding- to give the funders more prestige by way of association with particular researchers.
It’s no secret that funding mechanisms and IP governance in science and academia are unfortunately fundamentally broken.
Organizations like VitaDAO, Molecule, Bio.xyz, ResearchHub & many others stand to change this by building those mechanisms & structures onchain to accelerate exponential breakthroughs in the age of information.
In order to fund innovative research, BioDAOs like VitaDAO pool capital and then allocate it according to a community voting process. This means that cutting edge science gets the monetary boost it needs to be kickstarted, but that’s not all. The IP produced by that research is actually tokenized, and then governed by its community of token holders (aka research funders) who steward it down an optimal path to real impact.
We’ve added the VitaDAO $VITA token to limitless.exchange to reignite a new era of prediction markets in science.
"Using BioDAO tokens in onchain prediction markets means that new mediums of financial & social gravity can be used to forecast scientific outcomes by extracting sentiment from leading minds in the industry."
You can visit limitless.exchange today and start trading in markets such as;
“Will VitaDAO fund $2m of science in 2024?”
“Will aggregate DeSci market cap achieve $1b in 2024?”
“Will Artan Bio VitaRNA commence clinical trials of their engineered suppressor system to counter aging mutations on human subjects in 2025?”
Beyond that, you can become a creator by proposing your own science related prediction markets to gain insights & generate extra revenue, or if you’re a BioDAO representative- reach out to CJ directly to get your token added to the platform!
CJ
Great article!
"Using BioDAO tokens in onchain prediction markets means that new mediums of financial & social gravity can be used to forecast scientific outcomes by extracting sentiment from leading minds in the industry." https://paragraph.xyz/@limitlessexchange/vita-desci-prediction-markets
wdyt @gmo ?
Technical and Ethical considerations that come up, here are a few: 1. Scientific research is lengthy, complex, multivariate & topically quite niche to the point where a subset of scientists can actually meaningfully engage in prediction 2. Prediction markets require meaningful and a significant number of participation from knowledgeable people, DeSci does not have that currently (there are very few academic scientists, scientists are generally resistant to web3, & no significant onboarding strategies) 3. Scientific research is a long tedious process without reward for years and years (if at all), shared IP incentives therefore are very long term & do not align with the instant or delayed gratification culture of web3 3. Ethically, the scientific questions with the most financial incentives are not necessarily the questions most worth pursuing or funding. This perpetuate academias incentives problem by displacing it to another group of stakeholders with possibly less knowledge or authority on the subjects
I believe there are a lot of really great academic scientists in or funded by the DeSci space I admit when you compare that to TradSci, they may be few & far between but that wasn’t really the point of the article. also, I believe that it’s hard to predict things in general, not only scientific outcomes, which is why prediction markets extract wisdom from crowds. even just a few professional traders can iron out inconsistencies in forecasts bc there is economic incentives to do so. there are also other interesting use cases. for example, let’s say that there is an IP Token that you’ve invested in- you may actually bet against it in a prediction market to hedge your position. and there are fun use cases. btw, in terms of what to fund, I think DeSci is great in funding early stage & experimental research so it can hit key milestones then grow to a broader funding base. the more times DeSci is right with those bets, the more TradSci will respect the movement
** I say all of this from the perspective of an academically trained scientist that is optimistic about the potential of DeSci
learn more about how Limitless experiments with science x prediction markets & how to get involved here 👇 https://paragraph.xyz/@limitlessexchange/vita-desci-prediction-markets