In the early days of crypto, DeFi was one of the sole use cases in the space apart from store of value and payments/cross border remittences. As the industry evolved, we witnessed a surge of innovations that transcended finance — crypto applications integrating with AI, tokenizing real-world assets, and much more. However, one vertical remains largely under the radar: DeSci.
You might be wondering, how exactly do we decentralise science? To put it simply, the goal of DeSci is to create a global and transparent ecosystem for scientific research. DeSci seeks to establish public infrastructure for the fair and equitable funding, creation, review, crediting, storage, and dissemination of scientific knowledge.
By building out a decentralised infrastructure for research tooling, funding, and communication, DeSci encourages scientists to share their work openly, making scientific knowledge accessible to all. This decentralised approach enhances transparency and fosters innovation by allowing unconventional ideas to thrive, free from the constraints of traditional, centralised systems. In this article, we will be taking a closer look at DeSci protocols and products, shedding light on how the services they provide differ from that of traditional science.
Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) and fundraising platforms
DAOs have been one of the most highly adopted crypto models in the DeSci vertical. Many DeSci DAOs are set up with the vision of fair scientific funding, as well as promoting research ownership through intellectual property (IP)-NFTs.
The traditional model for scientific funding is often inefficient, biassed, and conservative. This approach stifles innovation, as grant funding tends to concentrate among senior researchers with safer, less groundbreaking projects. Crypto offers an opportunity to revolutionise this system by leveraging decentralised and transparent funding mechanisms such as retroactive public goods funding, quadratic funding, and more. This not only democratises access to funding but also empowers researchers to pursue innovative ideas, free from the barriers of traditional gatekeeping.
IP in traditional science is often trapped within universities or biotech firms. IP-NFTs address this limitation by establishing transparent and equitable value distribution for scientific work. IP-NFTs also allow for fractional ownership, enabling all stakeholders to benefit from all transactions tied to their contributions. These NFTs can serve as keys to decentralised repositories of research data, making it easier to share, access, and monetize scientific work.
Below, we look at some areas of science that could be decentralised.
a) Data infrastructure
Currently, health or biological data is collected and handled in a way that does not give individuals autonomy over how it is utilised. However, with decentralised data infrastructure in place, users maintain ownership of their data and can track how it’s used through blockchain technology. Users can now collect and sell their data on decentralised marketplaces, ensuring they receive fair compensation while maintaining privacy. Additionally, blockchain technology ensures data provenance, enabling users to know exactly how and where their data is being used.
b) Decentralised biobank
Unlike traditional biobanks that are centralised and often limited in accessibility, decentralised biobanks leverage blockchain technology to democratise access and ensure transparency. These biobanks allow individuals to store and share biological data securely, with governance managed by DAOs to ensure ethical use. Participants can directly benefit from the data they contribute, either through financial rewards or by influencing how their data is used in research. The project Amino Chain comes to mind here.
c) Decentralised research platforms
Decentralised research platforms enable scientists to access and share research resources such as laboratory access and scientific computation models without the need for intermediaries. By tokenizing access to these advanced scientific tools and services, these platforms break down barriers for underfunded researchers, fostering global collaboration and innovation. ResearchHub is operating in this vertical, see below for a more detailed write-up.
Interesting DeSci protocols
In this next section, we will dive into some interesting DeSci protocols and their product offerings, as well as how they work.
a) ResearchHub
ResearchHub (Brian Armstrong, the founder of Coinbase, is also the co-founder of this project) is a decentralised platform for open publication and discussion of scientific research. It created a framework for scientists to efficiently raise funds, while still being able to spend the majority of their time on research. Additionally, ResearchHub also provides easy access to research peer review and eliminates barriers to participation in scientific research.
Traditionally, academic publishing is done in the form of scientific journals. ResearchHub has created Hubs in place of journals, which allows for streamlined and open publishing of scientific or academic content. The platform also allows for collaborative drafts before publishing. Users can earn ResearchCoin, $RSC by sharing, critiquing and peer-reviewing various kinds of scientific research, as well as via developing open-source features for the platform. $RSC also gives users the ability to create research bounties, tip other users, and participate in governance.
By financially incentivising and reaffirming positive actions on the platform with $RSC, ResearchHub properly recognises and rewards users who contribute positively to the community.
Examples of actions rewarded on the platform:
• Peer reviews are awarded $150+ in RSC per quality review
• Sharing non-copyrighted research paper PDFs
• Engaging in discussions on scientific research
• Developing open-source features
ResearchHub takes a bold approach to scientific publishing, challenging the traditional limitations of academic journals. By providing a platform where research can be freely shared, critiqued, and developed, it empowers fair participation and pushes the boundaries of how research is funded, published, and evaluated today.
b) BIO Protocol
BIO Protocol is a curation and liquidity protocol that accelerates biotechnology by giving global communities of patients, scientists and biotech professionals the ability to collectively fund, build and own tokenized biotech projects and IP. They aim to establish a decentralised economy of scientific communities, BioDAOs, and create deep liquidity for the scientific IP they develop.
The platform has 5 main functions:
Curation: $BIO token holders can stake $BIO tokens on BioDAOs they want to be accepted into the BIO network.
Funding: Once accepted into the network, these BioDAOs can fundraise using the BIO Launchpad and direct funding towards research initiatives, IP assets, and more. BIO protocol also provides BioDAOs with custom token sale, airdrop and treasury allocation mechanisms
Liquidity: The BIO protocol bootstraps on-chain liquidity for BioDAOs by using tokens in the BIO treasury. The $BIO token can be paired in liquidity pools with bioDAO tokens as well as with other assets.
Incentives: The BIO protocol can issue $BIO incentives to BioDAOs for achieving key milestones related to the development of the BIO network
Governance Layer: The BIO protocol holds various bioDAO tokens in its treasury which serves to govern a wide range of bioDAOs and scientific IP assets.
$BIO token holders are encouraged to partake in governance activities to continually improve the network and its processes. BIO Protocol is reshaping how biotechnology is funded, developed, and owned. By leveraging blockchain technology, it breaks down traditional barriers to innovation. The platform empowers patients, scientists, and professionals to take part in building and governing biotech initiatives, setting a new standard for advancing biotech transparently and inclusively.
Why DeSi has yet to take off
Despite the best efforts put forth by the decentralised science community to overhaul current research processes, this grand vision cannot be fulfilled just yet. It is true that blockchains and crypto infrastructure open up a myriad of possibilities, but there are several challenges such as legal regulations and scepticism due to its nascency. This scrutiny is further exacerbated for a vertical such as DeSci, which involves sensitive topics such as healthcare, longevity research and biotechnology.
It is also prudent to point out that at present, most protocols and products offered in the DeSci vertical revolve around DAOs. The lack of clear legal recognition and regulation in most jurisdictions is a challenge for DAOs, leaving them exposed to potential liability. Without concrete legal frameworks put in place, DAOs may run into more legal issues with respect to asset ownership and management, as well as other matters related to compliance.
While there has been a wave of innovation in the DeSci vertical, not enough has been done on the legal front for the DeSci protocols to reach their full potential. Nonetheless, this is a vertical that is brimming with potential and will likely see a breakthrough once legal frameworks are more established in the near future.
Unfortunately, we could not cover all the DeSci protocols in this article, but for a curated repository please visit our open-sourced database of projects building in this vertical.
Thank you for reading!
References
Signum Capital's DeSci Notion: https://signumcapitalsg.notion.site/6108e2924e5642e1a915c4224038bd01?v=31a87936c80f42578a4b8f0778c615d8
