DeSci (Decentralized Science) is a movement aimed at building public infrastructure using the Web3 stack to fairly fund, create, review, record, store, and disseminate scientific knowledge. DeSci seeks to establish an ecosystem that incentivizes scientists to openly share their research findings, and earn work credits, and it allows anyone to easily access and contribute to research. The core idea of DeSci is that everyone should have access to scientific knowledge, and the scientific research process should be transparent. DeSci is creating a more decentralized and distributed model for scientific research to make it more resistant to central authorities' scrutiny and control. By decentralizing funding, scientific tools, and communication channels, DeSci aims to create an environment where new and unconventional ideas can flourish.
1. Current Pain Points in Scientific Research
For scientists, funding is a pressing issue, as a significant portion of their time is spent writing funding applications. The success of obtaining funds is often closely tied to the h-index, a metric quantifying the impact of scientists' publications. Under pressure, scientists tend to chase trendy topics to attract attention. Inadequate and unstable funding not only reduces scientific output but also leads scientists to have biased preferences for research projects, contributing to the "replication crisis."
Secondly, access to information is another problem. Despite the global public interest in science, much scientific knowledge is either published in paid journal content or stored in private databases. The Open Science movement, dating back more than a decade, aimed to improve the accessibility of various data types. While this movement has had a significant impact, challenges persist, such as the emergence of pay-to-publish models by journals. Scientists now face costs to publish their research instead of paying to read others' work, leading to the concentration of power in large publishers' hands.
2. Solutions Proposed by DeSci
Utilizing the features of Web3.0, DeSci proposes a more decentralized research and commercialization model that is resistant to institutional and publisher influence and control. Through decentralized and diversified funding sources (from DAOs, secondary donations to crowdfunding, etc.), research data and methods, scientific tools, and communication channels, DeSci is creating an environment where unconventional ideas can thrive. DeSci encourages scientists worldwide to join like-minded research teams, specifically DAO organizations, such as online collaborative laboratories and cloud labs. This borderless sharing of knowledge will drive scientific progress, allowing researchers to find solutions to fundamental problems more quickly, share collaborative results, and protect intellectual property through opportunities provided by NFTs.
3. Use Cases of DeSci
Publishing
Scientific publishing is a well-known problem, managed by publishers relying on the unpaid labor of scientists, reviewers, and editors to generate papers and then charging high publishing fees. Public often indirectly pays for works and publication fees through taxes, and access to the same work is often restricted without paying publishers again. Free and open-access platforms exist in the form of preprint servers, such as ArXiv. However, these platforms lack quality control and typically do not track article-level metrics, serving mainly as promotion platforms before submission to traditional publishers. SciHub allows free access to published papers but is illegal and only works after publishers have collected fees and subjected the work to strict copyright legislation, leaving a critical gap for accessible scientific papers and data with embedded legitimacy mechanisms and incentive models. Web3 tools exist to build such systems.
Funding
The current standard model for scientific funding involves individuals or scientist groups submitting written applications to funding institutions. Small groups of trusted individuals score applications, conduct interviews, and provide funds to a small number of applicants. This model causes bottlenecks, sometimes requiring several years between application and funding, and is susceptible to biases, self-interest, and political influence from review panels. Web3, through various incentive models developed widely in DAOs, has the potential to break this fragmented funding pattern. Tools like public goods funding, secondary financing, DAO governance, and tokenized incentive structures are Web3 tools that can profoundly change scientific funding.
Data Storage, Access, and Architecture
Using Web3 patterns can make scientific data more easily accessible, and distributed storage ensures research can survive catastrophic events. A starting point should be a system accessible by any decentralized identity holding appropriate verifiable credentials. This allows trusted parties to securely replicate sensitive data, achieving redundancy, audit resistance, result replication, and even the ability to collaborate with multiple parties and add new data to datasets. Confidential computing methods, like computing to data for raw data replication, provide alternative access mechanisms for the most sensitive data, creating a trustworthy research environment. Trusted research environments have been cited by the NHS as a future data privacy and collaboration solution. Web3 tools support flexible data solutions and lay the foundation for true open science where researchers can create public goods without access restrictions or fees. Web3 public data solutions, such as IPFS, Arweave, and Filecoin, are optimized for decentralization. For instance, dClimate provides universal access to climate and weather data, including data from weather stations and predictive climate models.
4. DeSci Ecosystem Projects
According to the DAO aggregator ThePASS platform, there are currently 37 DeSci-related organizations. Currently, ResearchHub ranks highest among DeSci DAO assets, with a treasury total value of $538.5 million, with over 99.92% in native tokens. Removing the native token ratio, VitaDAO would be the top treasury in terms of ranking.
ResearchHub
ResearchHub is an online tool designed to facilitate efficient research collaboration in the scientific community. Researchers can upload articles, summarize work results in an attached wiki, and discuss research findings in open forums dedicated to relevant articles. ResearchHub uses ResearchCoin (RSC) ERC-20 tokens to incentivize participation. Activities such as uploading new content and discussions receive RSC tokens in proportion to the number of upvotes, while downvotes erode RSC.
Vita DAO
VitaDAO is a DAO organization collectively funding and advancing longevity research in a public and democratic manner. It is a mature DeSci DAO organization, having recently announced the completion of a $4.1 million funding round, with investors including Pfizer Ventures, Shine Capital, L1 Digital, and Balaji Srinivasan. The project aims to use the funds to further support longevity research projects and a biotech startup to be spun off from the DAO next year.
Molecule DAO
Molecule DAO is a decentralized biotechnology protocol aimed at transitioning research IP into Web3, helping them launch their own DAO organizations. Molecule DAO has assisted Vita DAO, Psy DAO in DAO issuance and has also entered into strategic cooperation with the DAO aggregation platform ThePASS.
In Conclusion
In summary, DeSci is flourishing. DeSci projects are committed to improving the current state of science, focusing on various directions and goals, including funding science, disrupting the scientific publishing industry, maintaining open science, and pursuing specific research objectives such as longevity or space exploration. There are dozens of DeSci DAOs and charitable initiatives. Scientists are embracing the trend of NFTs, offering a new way to fundraise and own intellectual property. On the other hand, science serves as an unfathomable source of inspiration for artists showcasing science to the public through NFT collections.
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