MT Capital Research Report: Current Status and Future Prospect of DeSci Track

TL;DR

• DeSci Integrates with Web3 and Blockchain: DeSci combines blockchain technology, aiming to improve key aspects of scientific research such as peer review, funding sponsorship, intellectual property management, and data transparency.
• DeSci impacts scientific research: DeSci promises to increase the transparency, efficiency, and democratization of scientific research while providing new opportunities to solve global problems.
• Challenges and future prospects: In the future, it needs to deal with improving peer review mechanisms, funding challenges, protecting data privacy, as well as increasing diversity participation and promoting the integration of DeSci into traditional scientific fields.

What is DeSci

The development of DeSci is closely linked to the rise of Web3 technology, especially blockchain technology. It represents a new method of scientific research, the core of which lies in using blockchain technology to solve some fundamental problems in traditional scientific research. Developments at DeSci focus on improving peer review, funding sponsorship, intellectual property management, and increasing data transparency and review. These are key links in the traditional scientific research process.

The main features of DeSci are:

Peer review and publication process: The traditional scientific publishing process is managed by journals, which often involves lengthy peer review and editorial work. Blockchain technology, especially smart contracts, can be used to streamline this process. The construction of decentralized communities and the introduction of reputation systems can improve the efficiency and transparency of the process. For example, VitaDAO is an organization that applies blockchain technology in peer review and reputation systems.

Funding: Traditional science funding models often involve lengthy application processes and are susceptible to bias from review groups. Blockchain technology offers an alternative that allows direct funding of scientific research through crowdfunding. For example, Molecule is a blockchain-based funding marketplace that connects patients, biotech companies or investors with scientists, promoting the development of an open research market.

Intellectual Property Management: In the DeSci field, the introduction of Intellectual Property NFTs (IP-NFTs) enables researchers to share the ownership and future results of research projects. Molecule is a pioneer in this regard, and by using IP-NFT, scientists, biomedical researchers and biotech companies can more easily obtain funding and realize commercialization.

Data transparency and review: The application of blockchain technology also increases data transparency, allowing scientific research data to be stored and accessed in a decentralized environment. This helps break down data silos and facilitates collaboration on projects and research.

The impact and prospects of DeSci

Simplification of industrial transformation: Due to the intellectual property ownership and complex processes of universities or research institutions, the process of industrial transformation of academic results is usually long and complicated. DeSci provides new opportunities and simplifies the transition of academic results to commercialization. By building intellectual property NFTs and other innovative mechanisms, DeSci helps researchers more directly transform their scientific research results into commercial products. In addition, DeSci also helps VCs discover projects “under the table,” that is, research projects that are not yet widely known but demonstrate potential.

Breaking traditional boundaries: DeSci goes beyond the field of scientific research. Its concepts and tools are also applicable to the arts, humanities, and even native knowledge systems. This interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge sharing is one of the key features of DeSci.

Inspiring new forms of collaboration: DeSci, through its decentralized nature, is able to facilitate collaboration on a global scale, especially for projects that require global environmental data and multidisciplinary input. In this way, DeSci has the potential to address some of the most pressing global problems, such as climate change and public health crises.

DeSci’s key technologies and applications

Blockchain and smart contracts: Blockchain plays a central role in DeSci, especially smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing pieces of code that can be used to automate various aspects of the scientific publishing process, such as peer review. These contracts ensure transparency and efficiency in the process while also reducing the time and cost of traditional publishing.

Decentralized peer review and publication processes: DeSci uses blockchain technology to eliminate intermediaries in the traditional publishing process, such as journal coordination, thereby increasing access to research results and transparency. For example, Ants Review directly intervenes in the interaction between authors and reviewers through smart contracts, using tokens as incentives to improve the efficiency and quality of peer review.

Communities raise research funding: Blockchain technology is also used in crowdfunding, allowing scientists to connect directly with patients, biotech companies or investors, powering an open research market. This funding model allows scientists to bypass traditional funding channels and receive support directly from the community. For example, Molecule raises funds for scientific research such as drug development through means such as NFTs and DAOs.

Intellectual property management: In DeSci, NFTs are used to manage and develop intellectual property, such as scientific data or articles. This makes the sharing and transformation of intellectual property more efficient, while also providing scientists and researchers with a new income stream. For example, Molecule leverages IP-NFT to share ownership of research projects and their future results.

Data Transparency and Review: Data hosted on the blockchain increases the transparency of scientific research, allowing scientists to easily access and store databases of relevant research to make more accurate research decisions. DeSci leverages a unique feature of blockchain technology – the “permanent network.” This means that once data is uploaded to the blockchain, it is nearly impossible to delete or modify it. This feature is particularly important for scientific research because it ensures that scientific data and findings remain intact and accessible even in the face of political or social pressure. This is particularly critical to protecting the integrity of scientific research and anti-censorship, ensuring the freedom and objectivity of scientific research.

Decentralized research tools and publishing platforms: DeSci provides multifunctional decentralized platforms such as DeSci Node and LabDAO to support the scientific research process, including seamless integration of reports, charts, codes, and external APIs in various formats.

Establishment of reputation system: In order to build a high-quality and reliable DeSci community, the platform needs to establish a complete reputation system to track user interactions on the decentralized platform, such as likes, comments and posts, to help build credibility and an expertise base. Through blockchain, a scientist’s contributions – whether peer review, sharing of research data, or participation in professional training and mentoring – can be recorded and verified through the issuance of NFTs. These NFTs not only serve as direct evidence of a scientist’s contribution, but also serve as a measure of their reputation in the scientific community. Such a system encourages scientists to engage in community building and knowledge sharing, while providing a more objective and transparent way to evaluate and reward their work.

Social platform for academia: ResearchGate in web2 has raised more than 100M in cumulative financing. This kind of platform in web3 provides a new way for scientists, researchers and other stakeholders to communicate and collaborate. Through such a social platform, scientists can share research results, seek partners, and also provide VCs with a channel for discovering and investing in potential scientific research projects.

DeSci ecological project

Molecule

Molecule is a decentralized biotech research fundraising platform that currently has around 40 scientists looking for funding for their projects. Molecule was inspired by the citizen science movement and the idea of ​​openness in drug development, with original ideas coming from the patient community to help advance and fund early-stage drug development. Built on Ethereum, Molecule includes two main systems: Molecule Discovery and Molecule Finance. These systems create an active ecosystem for decentralized modular drug development. Molecule uses a combination of smart contracts and legal contracts to form intellectual property NFTs (IP-NFTs). This new mechanism allows anyone to share the ownership of research projects and their future results, such as intellectual property rights, royalties, data, etc. Molecule goes beyond the basic functionality of its own website, building a complete and vast ecosystem that enables patient collectives and drug development DAOs to maintain, manage and interact with real-world intellectual property.

Data Lake

Data Lake is an innovative medical data donation platform. Built by using blockchain technology, it aims to support the development of medical research and artificial intelligence. It uses Polygon and its own token system ($LAKE) to build a bridge between patients willing to donate medical data and researchers who need this data. The goal of this platform is to contribute to the discovery of disease treatments and new therapies, so as to improve healthcare delivery and patient outcomes.

Data Lake works by gaining access to medical data from a donor’s healthcare provider and then anonymizing the data. As a result, researchers can use the data securely. In addition, the platform also allows hospitals and data donors to share the economic returns generated by medical data, thus motivating more individuals and institutions to participate in the sharing of medical data. In this way, Data Lake protects personal privacy while promoting the advancement of medical research.

GenomesDAO

GenomesDAO is a biotech decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focused on monetizing genomic data. It incorporates the concepts of decentralized finance (DeFi) to ensure the security, privacy and auditability of genomic data. The following are the main features of GenomesDAO:

Target users: GenomesDAO is for individuals and organizations, providing individuals with whole-genome sequencing services, personalized genome reports, and secure personal DNA vault storage. For organizations, it provides technical support to create secure, participant-owned genomic databases.

Research Support: Provides researchers with access to high-quality genomic datasets to help them understand disease causes and develop new medicines.

Token Application: Use GENE tokens to pay for whole genome sequencing services and as a query incentive by using their crypto DNA data vault.

The goal of GenomesDAO is to facilitate the growth of genomics research and the innovation of new drugs while protecting personal privacy. Through its platform, GenomesDAO transforms personal genetic data into valuable resources while ensuring data security and privacy.

HairDAO

HairDAO is a decentralized organization dedicated to treating hair loss, using an open source investment and operation model. It aims to democratize the research and development of hair loss treatments and provide financial support for early-stage hair loss research and related companies.

Here are some features of HairDAO:

Diverse Participation: HairDAO encourages participation among people with a variety of skills, whether technical or domain-specific expertise.

Reward mechanism: Through its token $HAIR, HairDAO rewards those who contribute to solving the problem of hair loss. Users can earn $HAIR as rewards by uploading their own anonymized, crypto genomic data.

Cultural characteristics: Although it focuses on scientific research, HairDAO displays a relaxed and humorous style on its official website and Twitter, which is in sharp contrast to traditional scientific research projects. Its content expression and design style are eclectic, and even have the humorous temperament of some old pantomime movies.

Meme temperament: In the DeSci field, HairDAO stands out with its “hair loss” theme and light-hearted and humorous profile. Its Twitter even uses the emoji symbol of a hair salon, enhancing its characteristics as a meme coin.

VitaDAO

Being a leader in research and development in the field of longevity, VitaDAO is a biotech DAO for decentralized drug development and community management initiated by Molecule. As the world’s first biotechnology DAO, VitaDAO’s main goal is to promote the progress of longevity research and extend human lifespan and healthspan.

Here are some core features of VitaDAO:

Community Governance: VitaDAO is governed by community members holding $VITA tokens and focuses on funding early-stage longevity research projects.

Funded Projects: Has funded more than 20 research projects totaling more than $6 million, covering age-related disease research and the discovery of new treatments.

Research scope: Research projects supported include basic research and preclinical research.

Voting Rights of Token Holders: $VITA token holders participate in VitaDAO’s decision-making process, including project funding selection, fund management, and governance activities.

To incentivize the funding of early-stage longevity biomedical research, VitaDAO combines an innovative governance framework with financial instruments such as DAOs, NFTs, and AMMs. VitaDAO, running on Ethereum, not only co-funds research but also digitizes research results into IP NFTs. Token VITA issued by VitaDAO can be obtained by contributing work, funds or other resources (such as data and IP) to VitaDAO. Members with VITA can not only participate in VitaDAO’s democratic governance and guide its research direction, but also profit from its data repository and manage its intellectual property portfolio. This model promotes innovation and democratization of scientific research while providing community members with opportunities to directly participate in and benefit from scientific decision-making.

ResearchHub

ResearchHub was founded by Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong as a platform that aims to change the traditional scientific research journal publishing model. The platform recently closed a $5 million Series A round on June 15. ResearchHub creates a “Hub” system that replaces traditional journals, allowing scientists or scholars to publicly publish and discuss scientific or academic content directly in these centers, thereby avoiding the review process of traditional publishing, accelerating the dissemination of information, and conducting post-publication Peer review.

User activity on ResearchHub can be rewarded with ResearchCoin (RSC), an ERC-20 cryptocurrency issued on the Ethereum platform for scientific research. The RSC aims to inspire the scientific community to share, review and curate information. Users can obtain RSC rewards in the following ways:

1. Share a PDF of a research paper (provided no copyright is infringed)
2. Comment and discuss scientific research
3. Peer review of scientific papers
4. Receive RSC tips from other users
5. Develop open source features

Additionally, users can set up RSC bounties for peer review, paper abstracts, or new methods in the lab. Research can also be funded through “pre-registration” projects, where cryptocurrency is raised in forum posts before research work begins. According to ResearchHub, activity on the platform continues to grow over time, with peer review activity in particular being the most active and promising.

Comparison of DeSci and traditional scientific research environment

The DeSci environment provides a more decentralized, transparent and collaborative scientific research environment, in sharp contrast to the traditional, more centralized and closed-door scientific research environment.

Challenges and future prospects of DeSci

Current technical and operational challenges facing the DeSci field

Peer Review Mechanism: Peer review remains a critical quality control step in DeSci. For example, Ants-Review proposes a blockchain-based incentive protocol that aims to solve the expensive, inefficient, and centralized problems in traditional peer review. However, this system also faces some key issues, such as determining review qualifications and preventing malicious behavior and cheating.

Project funding: Although blockchain provides a new “crowdfunding” model, financial support for large-scale scientific research projects remains a challenge. Small projects can use the NFR (Non-Fungible Rights Recognition) model to solve funding problems, but large projects usually require national-level investment.

Privacy protection: In DeSci, it is necessary to find a balance between promoting transparency and collaboration while ensuring data confidentiality. Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology plays a key role in this regard.

Diversified Engagement: The makeup of the DeSci community reflects existing demographics in crypto and science, where women and other minority groups are underrepresented. This goes beyond gender differences to include diversity in race, geography and economic background. This lack of diversity can lead to biases and limitations in research directions, limiting the range of problems DeSci can explore and solve. To be more inclusive, DeSci projects need to actively engage and encourage participation from a wider group of people. This may include providing educational resources, building partnerships, and ensuring that diverse voices are heard in decision-making processes.

DeSci’s long-term impact and potential development path

Innovative ways to raise funds: Platforms like Gitcoin provide funding for projects through new mechanisms such as secondary financing.

Intellectual property management: For example, the Molecule project created a new way of managing intellectual property by building intellectual property NFTs (IP-NFTs).

The development of data markets: Open data markets will inspire new forms of collaboration, with innovative database structures such as DBDAO allowing individuals to benefit from their data.

Importance of emergency funding: DeSci’s ability to raise research funding is particularly important when responding to emergencies, such as public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditional government funds are often allocated according to fiscal year budgets, which is not flexible and fast enough in the face of emergencies. In contrast, DeSci leverages its decentralized nature to quickly mobilize resources and focus funding on critical research and response measures. This kind of speed and efficiency is difficult to match with traditional fundraising methods. This rapid-response funding approach could become a key tool in responding to global health emergencies in the future.

How to promote the integration of DeSci and traditional scientific fields

Transparent fund use and management: By learning from DeFi, DeSci can achieve more efficient fund use.

Optimization of resource sharing: Through smart contracts, resources such as scientific research equipment can be more conveniently shared, promoting efficient use of resources.

Promotion of global cooperation: Decentralized science can promote cooperation on a global scale with the help of blockchain technology, especially for projects that require global environmental data.

Application of AIGC technology: Artificial intelligence content generation (AIGC) can be used to improve the productivity of scientific research texts and help better display research results.

Promote open science and interdisciplinary collaboration: DeSci supports and strengthens the concept of open science, making scientific research and data available to everyone, increasing transparency and accessibility. This helps improve the quality and impact of scientific research. The DeSci environment encourages collaboration between different disciplines and breaks down traditional barriers between disciplines through blockchain and smart contract technology. Interdisciplinary collaboration is particularly important to address complex problems such as climate change and public health crises.

Conclusion & Suggestion

For scientific research institutions and investors, DeSci provides a novel method of raising scientific research funds and project management. For example, the case of VitaDAO shows that through the DeSci model, scientific research projects can obtain financial support from DAOs in professional fields and be managed through voting by DAO members. This model provides researchers with transparency into the funding allocation process and enables funders to directly participate in the decision-making process.

Currently, DeSci mainly aims to address funding, organization and transparency issues in scientific research. DeSci uses the transparency and immutability of blockchain technology to provide a new model for raising and managing scientific research funding. This model could foster closer collaboration between different research institutions and private funders, helping to bridge the “valley of death” between basic research and clinical research. At the same time, it may also provide more opportunities for young scientists to support non-traditional research.

DeSci significantly improves the efficiency of academic publishing. Through a decentralized peer review and publication process, publication time and complexity are reduced, allowing scientific knowledge to disseminate more quickly. DeSci alleviates monopoly issues in the traditional academic publishing market by providing an open, transparent platform. This helps to increase publication diversity and provide more researchers with publishing opportunities, thus promoting the pluralism and democratization of scientific research.

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [金色財經]. All copyrights belong to the original author [Xinwei，MT_Capital]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.