Written by: Anthony Chan, Shubham Kumar Translated by: Plain Language Blockchain
The life cycle of scientific research is often full of obstacles. Take the development of new drugs as an example. This process is extremely long and expensive, and is full of challenges with a high failure rate - 95% of drugs fail after entering human trials, and the average R&D cost exceeds US$2 billion and takes more than 13 years! In addition, the funding model for academic research is too biased towards researchers with deep qualifications, resulting in a shortage of funds for innovative and non-traditional projects. At the same time, the pressure to publish papers or research results also raises some problems, such as excessive speculation, difficulty in reproducing results, and systemic inequalities, where minorities are often disadvantaged. These systemic problems highlight the need for innovative solutions to democratize research funding, promote collaboration, and maintain the integrity of scientific discovery. Therefore, this article aims to explore two key questions: (1) Why is decentralized science (DeSci) needed? (2) How can it solve existing problems?
1. What is Decentralized Science (DeSci)?
Decentralized Science (DeSci) is an emerging movement that uses blockchain technology to solve core challenges in the scientific field, such as insufficient funding, lack of transparency, and difficulties in cooperation. By using decentralized technologies such as Tokens, NFTs, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), DeSci is committed to building a more open, community-driven, and incentivized scientific research model. It promotes transparent funding models, peer review processes, and data sharing by eliminating traditional intermediaries. DeSci projects such as VitaDAO, Molecule, and AminoChain demonstrate how decentralized platforms can redefine the way scientific research is funded, conducted, and disseminated, thereby bridging the gap between basic research and clinical applications while ensuring ownership and transparency of data management.
2. Problem Statement
1) Inefficient research funding system
The current research funding system is extremely inefficient, with researchers spending nearly 80% of their time applying for funding and only 20% of their time actually being spent on research. Imagine if software developers also had to spend most of their energy on fighting for funding instead of focusing on programming, the pace of technological progress would inevitably slow down significantly, just as the existing backward processes are hindering the progress of scientific innovation. The obstacles faced by junior researchers are particularly significant, with most funding and resources occupied by senior scientists. This preferential policy inhibits the generation of novel and unconventional ideas and limits opportunities, especially in underrepresented areas. In addition, the centralized, competitive and conservative funding allocation system prioritizes clichéd and boring research rather than directions with significant impact.
2) Outdated research infrastructure and decentralized data management system
The research ecosystem faces serious challenges of outdated infrastructure and decentralized data management systems. Platforms like GitHub for code and Dropbox for data form "information islands" that limit collaboration efficiency. In addition, many data repositories fail to meet FAIR standards (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability), resulting in a large amount of data loss - the data loss rate is as high as 80% in 20 years, mainly due to problems such as link failure. At the same time, intellectual property (IP) is usually controlled by institutions rather than researchers, which means that when scientists change institutions, they may lose control of their research, resulting in early data and informal collaborations that cannot be effectively protected. These problems, coupled with insufficient interoperability between systems and the use of old tools like fax machines, not only hinder collaboration, but also hinder AI-driven research and slow down the pace of scientific progress as a whole.
3) Low-incentive replication and unpaid peer review
Replication is a key step in verifying scientific discoveries, but it has been severely neglected as academic journals focus more on novel discoveries. This has led to the so-called "reproducibility crisis", with an estimated 70% of published research being unable to be replicated. In addition, scientists often work unpaid during the peer review process, which is estimated to cost up to $1.5 billion per year. However, the process often lacks transparency and fairness. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of overall scientific research, the issues of incentive mechanisms and compatibility must be addressed.
4) Oligopoly in scientific publishing
The global academic publishing market is dominated by five major publishers, which control nearly 50% of the market share, generate $19 billion in revenue each year, and have a profit margin of 40%. This oligopoly has enabled publishers to become “gatekeepers” that prioritize profits over scientific merit. High publishing fees (approximately $2,000 to $12,000 per article) create a huge barrier for underfunded researchers, especially those in developing regions. At the access level, the price of a single article can be as high as $35 to $50, further limiting the dissemination of critical knowledge. These high costs and restrictive policies have contributed to unequal knowledge sharing, prioritizing wealthier institutions and regions while excluding underfunded scientists and communities.
5) The “Valley of Death” in Research
The traditional new drug development process is time-consuming and expensive, typically taking 10 to 13 years and costing more than $2 billion to bring a new drug to market. During this process, pharmaceutical companies often work independently rather than collaborating in a globally connected market, resulting in duplication of effort and missed opportunities to jointly attack diseases such as cancer. The most critical obstacle in this process is the "valley of death", the stage between basic research and commercialization. During this period, many promising projects require a lot of money to achieve scale, but financial support has been drastically reduced. Since 95% of drugs fail in human trials, this funding gap has become a major obstacle, preventing many transformative innovations from entering the market and benefiting the public.
6) Lack of patient-centered model and data privacy protection in biomedical research
Thousands of people donate biological samples to support medical research every year, but the current system excludes these donors from the life cycle of their contributions. After donors usually sign a consent form, they can no longer understand the use of their samples, which weakens trust and reduces willingness to participate, resulting in consent rates as low as 25% in major institutions. The centralized system exacerbates this problem, unable to effectively track the use of samples or properly manage donor consent, while also facing the risk of data leakage and threatening the security of sensitive information. This lack of transparency and security limits the availability of high-quality data, slows scientific progress, and hinders the development of life-saving treatments.
3. Solutions
Decentralized Science (DeSci) solves many major challenges in the traditional scientific research ecosystem by leveraging blockchain technology, decentralized networks, and new incentive mechanisms. These solutions aim to improve the accessibility, transparency, funding allocation mechanisms, and collaboration levels of scientific research. The following is a general overview of how DeSci addresses key issues in the scientific community:
1) DAO: Enabling Collaborative Governance in Science
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) provide a decentralized, community-driven resource allocation and decision-making framework for scientific research. By democratizing resource allocation, DAOs enable scientists, investors, and other stakeholders to jointly propose and vote on scientific research projects, thereby promoting a collaborative and transparent research environment. Actual Cases As a decentralized platform, BIO Protocol helps the community fund and accelerate scientific research through blockchain technology. BIO Protocol supports the creation and funding of BioDAOs (Biological Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), which focus on specific medical challenges and pool resources and expertise to drive innovation. Success Stories
HairDAO: Developed Foll1C0ol, a consumer product for treating hair loss, and owns all patents owned by DAO.
CerebrumDAO: Raised $1.5 million for brain health research and partnered with Fission Pharma to address neurodegenerative diseases.
ValleyDAO: Focused on the field of synthetic biology, raised $2 million and partnered with Imperial College London.
AthenaDAO: Focused on women's health research, funded $500,000 in projects, and has 14 intellectual property transactions pending.
CryoDAO: Raising $3 million to advance cryogenic biology research, working with the Oxford cryogenics team.
Quantum Biology DAO: Led by a PhD from MIT, pioneering quantum microscopy and opening up new research possibilities.
Long COVID Labs: Led by a neuroscientist from Stanford University, accelerating research on long COVID and focusing on the health of millions of people affected worldwide.
2) Decentralized, persistent and accessible research data
The DeSci platform provides researchers with a secure and decentralized way to store data, manuscripts and research materials. Through blockchain technology, these platforms ensure the long-term accessibility of research data, avoiding the problem of data unavailability due to link failure (link rot). For example, platforms like DeSci Nodes provide decentralized storage to ensure the permanence and immutability of research results. In addition, the DeSci platform is built around the FAIR data principle (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable). Each dataset is attached with metadata that details how the data was generated, making it easy for other researchers to find and reuse the data. The integration of the FAIR principle not only improves the accessibility of scientific data, but also encourages collaboration and reduces the waste of duplicate research.
3) Reproduction and peer review incentive mechanism: solving the problem of scientific reproduction
A major problem in current scientific research is the "reproduction crisis", that is, many studies cannot get the same results in repeated experiments. DeSci is actively addressing this problem by providing rewards to scientists to encourage them to reproduce experiments or review others' research. For example, the ResearchHub platform, supported by Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong, uses tokens to reward scientists for verifying research results, sharing feedback, and participating in peer review. This mechanism gives researchers an incentive to double-check their findings, ensuring that published research is more reliable. By encouraging collaboration and transparency, DeSci is helping to solve this long-standing problem in traditional science.
4) Open Access and Programmatic Publishing
The DeSci platform eliminates the paywall barriers of traditional publishing by providing open access options, allowing scientists to freely share their research results. For example, DeSci Publish allows researchers to upload and disseminate research content without paying high publishing fees, thereby ensuring that scientific discoveries are more widely disseminated and influential. In addition, programmatic publishing speeds up the process from research to publication by automating tasks such as manuscript submission, formatting, peer review coordination, metadata creation, revision tracking, and dissemination, reducing the burden of manual submission and allowing researchers to focus on scientific research itself rather than tedious administrative affairs. Actual Case Etica Protocol is a decentralized science (DeSci) initiative that has revolutionized medical research by eliminating intellectual property (IP) restrictions and promoting open source collaboration. Launched in April 2022, Etica runs on blockchain technology, allowing researchers to freely share their research findings and receive financial rewards throughout the research process. By bypassing the traditional patent system and restrictive licensing agreements, Etica creates a fair and efficient framework that accelerates innovation while ensuring affordable treatments and promoting equitable access to medical advances.
Core Features
Decentralized Proposals: Researchers submit proposals related to specific diseases and are evaluated through community voting on the blockchain.
Staking and Voting: Token holders stake Etica Tokens (ETI) to participate in voting, and they will receive rewards for correct votes and face penalties for incorrect votes to ensure accountability.
Dynamic Approval Threshold: The approval threshold of the proposal is dynamically adjusted according to the voting mode to balance fairness and rigor.
Privacy and Transparency: A two-step voting system ensures privacy during the voting process and provides transparency after the results are revealed.
Research Areas of Etica Protocol
Etica Protocol promotes open source medical research across multiple key health challenges, focusing on global diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes. At the same time, collaboration on the platform is advancing innovative solutions for Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and actively addressing global issues such as malaria and silicosis (occupational lung disease). In addition, Etica supports research on cystic fibrosis (Mucoviscidosis) and addiction, as well as longevity research (Longevity Research) aimed at increasing life expectancy and fundamental research (Fundamental Research) exploring basic scientific issues. These research areas demonstrate Etica's real impact and encourage active participation to promote accessible and equitable medical solutions.
5) IP-NFTs: Empowering Researchers and Securing Ownership
Decentralized Science (DeSci) revolutionizes the funding, management, and innovation ownership models of scientific research by introducing a transparent and efficient framework, just as blockchain has disrupted the financial system. DeSci solves the "valley of death" problem in the field of scientific research by leveraging intellectual property non-fungible tokens (IP-NFTs) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) - this stage in which many promising projects die between basic research and commercialization due to lack of financial support. With DAOs, researchers can directly access global funding networks, bypass traditional barriers, and ensure that early projects obtain the necessary resources to achieve scale. This decentralized approach not only accelerates innovation, but also democratizes access to funds, promotes global collaboration, and drives scientific progress. IP-NFTs are the core technology of this revolution. Its framework is based on the Ethereum blockchain and integrates legal contracts, smart contracts, and encrypted private data stored on decentralized platforms such as Arweave and Filecoin. By tokenizing research projects, IP-NFTs enable efficient funding, transparent governance, and collective ownership, empowering researchers while ensuring fair access to scientific results. Here are some examples to illustrate this.
Key Benefits of IP-NFTs:
Monetization: Researchers can directly sell IP-NFTs to raise funds for research and potentially receive significant financial returns.
Open Access and Control: IP-NFTs can be combined with an open access model to ensure that research results are open to the public while retaining ownership.
Real Cases
Molecule is a leading platform that uses IP-NFTs to revolutionize scientific research funding. By tokenizing intellectual property, Molecule enables researchers to raise funds directly from a global community of investors, patients, and enthusiasts.
$30M+ has been raised through the Molecule ecosystem to support decentralized scientific research.
29 research projects have been funded, covering niche areas such as rare diseases and quantum biology.
15,700+ community members, including scientists, investors, and supporters.
$1.95 million directly funded cutting-edge research projects, making significant progress in underfunded areas.
VitaDAO demonstrates the transformative potential of IP-NFTs in scientific research, decentralizing funding and governance through blockchain technology. VitaDAO has deployed over $4.2 million, funded 24 research projects, and evaluated over 200 projects, fostering collaboration and transparency in advancing breakthrough longevity science. Its $6 million in liquidity demonstrates how decentralized mechanisms can effectively support innovative research and make progress in key scientific fields.
6) Examples of projects funded through IP-NFTs
Discovery of new autophagy activators
Laboratory: Korolchuk Lab, Newcastle University
Research focus: Finding compounds to restore autophagy function in aging cells and address cell recycling mechanisms associated with aging and disease.
Grant amount: $285,000
Naked mole-rat-based longevity biotechnology
Laboratory: Gorbunova Lab
Research focus: Develop therapies based on high molecular weight hyaluronic acid to exploit its anti-cancer and life-extending properties.
Grant amount: $300,000
Longevity molecules
Laboratory: Scheibye-Knudsen Lab
Research focus: Analyze 1.04 billion prescription records through machine learning to find drugs that can extend human life.
Amount of Grant: $537,000
ApoptoSENS: CAR-NK cells for eliminating senescent cells
Research focus: Developing CAR-NK cells to eliminate senescent cells and treat age-related diseases.
Amount of Grant: $253,000
Innovative mitophagy activators for Alzheimer's disease
Laboratory: Fang Lab
Research focus: Using AI to identify drug candidates that restore mitophagy, potentially treating Alzheimer's disease and other age-related diseases.
Grant Amount: $300,000
Reversing Periodontal Disease through Aging Science
Laboratory: An Lab
Research Focus: Testing compounds that target inflammation to treat age-related periodontitis and improve human healthy lifespan.
Grant Amount: $330,000
ARTAN Bio: Mutation-Specific Codon Suppression for Aging and Longevity
Company: ARTAN Bio
Research Focus: Developing interventions to treat nonsense mutations that drive age-related diseases and cancer.
Grant Amount: $91,300
7) Decentralization in Biomedicine
Decentralized Science (DeSci) offers a transformative solution by placing patients and donors at the center of the research process. With blockchain technology, DeSci ensures that donors have control over their biospecimens, enabling them to understand how their samples are used and even receive financial rewards when their samples are commercialized. This approach enhances trust and encourages participation. At the same time, decentralized systems provide greater security for sensitive data, ensuring that data is securely stored and accessible only with proper authorization. By replacing centralized data repositories with the transparency and immutability of blockchain, DeSci protects privacy and accelerates progress in biomedical research.
AminoChain: Transforming Biomedical Research Through Decentralized Science
AminoChain is revolutionizing biomedical research by building a decentralized platform to connect medical institutions and empower patients. The project has raised $7 million in funding, including a $5 million seed round led by a16z crypto and Cercano, to build a transparent and efficient system for managing biospecimens and medical data. At the core of AminoChain is Amino Node, a software package that integrates with existing medical systems such as electronic medical records and inventory management tools. Amino Node standardizes data into a common format while ensuring that the data is securely stored on institutional servers. By unifying data across the network, AminoChain makes it possible to develop patient-centric applications and promote collaboration among medical institutions. One of its key applications is Specimen Center, a peer-to-peer marketplace platform for biological specimens. Researchers can search and apply for samples from biobanks through the platform while maintaining compliance and tracking the source of samples. Tasks that traditional processes take weeks to complete are simplified here into efficient workflows, thereby accelerating the realization of research results. What is special is that donors can track the use of their samples, obtain insights generated by their contributions, and receive financial rewards when samples are commercialized, which further enhances trust and participation. AminoChain is unique in that it deeply embeds bioethics into core operations, prioritizes transparency and benefit sharing for patients, and facilitates research and collaboration in the biomedical field.
4. The bright future of decentralized science: a revolution in scientific research funding
Decentralized science (DeSci) is rapidly changing the way scientific research is funded and conducted, unlocking new possibilities for innovation and collaboration. Since 2023, more than 7 dedicated decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have been established, which have collectively evaluated more than 2,000 projects and allocated more than $70 million through on-chain channels. The fields covered by these DAOs are diverse, including psychedelic research, hair loss treatment, cryogenics, neuroscience, and cutting-edge quantum biology research. Although only 0.5% of the projects have been funded so far, their impact is already significant. More than 3,000 ETH has been invested, driving the development of 5 to 6 new drugs. The first actual product, a high-dose spermidine supplement, was brought to market by VitaDAO and approved by the Thai Food and Drug Administration, showing that the results of this revolutionary funding model are tangible.
6. Future Project Outlook of DeSci
DeSci's potential is further demonstrated in the exciting upcoming projects: 1) Curetopia
Goal: To solve more than 10,000 rare genetic diseases by uniting patient groups and various populations.
Method: Directly involve patients in research, put them at the core of research, and completely change the research methods for rare disease treatment.
2) Quantum Biology DAO
Goal: Accelerate quantum biology research and promote community building, open governance and innovative experiments.
Mission: Understand and manipulate biological mechanisms at the quantum level to open new doors for scientific breakthroughs.
7. Big players help DeSci
The importance of decentralized science (DeSci) has attracted the attention of major players in the blockchain field. BN Labs has made a large investment in BIO Protocol, a pioneering platform designed to allow global communities of scientists, patients and investors to co-fund and co-own breakthrough biomedical research. BIO Protocol focuses on key areas such as rare diseases, longevity research, and mental health, and incubates multiple BioDAOs to accelerate patient-driven innovation. Industry leaders such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and BN CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) have also expressed their support and personally attended a DeSci event in Bangkok. Their participation highlights DeSci’s potential to revolutionize scientific funding and research models around the world. DeSci’s development goes beyond the Ethereum ecosystem, and projects such as PumpDotScience on the Solana platform are pushing the boundaries of decentralized science. With the support of the Solana Foundation, PumpDotScience allows users to watch real-time scientific experiments and tokenize longevity compounds. This innovative model has brought rapid success, and its tokens have performed well after DevCon: $RIF has a market value of $106 million, while $URO has soared to $39 million. The decentralized science market is growing rapidly, with transaction volume exceeding $25 million and a total market value of $1.2 billion. DeSci tokens such as RSC, VITA and HAIR from ResearchHub, backed by Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong, also performed strongly. These data reflect investors' strong interest and confidence in the potential of DeSci, a field that is redefining the scientific development model.
8. A New Era of Science: The DeSci Revolution
Decentralized science (DeSci) is creating a revolution that fundamentally changes the way science is funded, implemented and shared. With the support of industry giants such as BN and the promotion of pioneers such as Vitalik Buterin, DeSci is not only a technological innovation, but also a movement dedicated to democratizing science and solving major challenges for mankind. Projects like BIO Protocol, Curetopia and Quantum Biology DAO show the potential to achieve real breakthroughs, and cross-chain collaboration has also expanded DeSci's influence from Ethereum to platforms such as Solana. This isn't just about blockchain speculation; it's about curing disease, accelerating development, and making innovation accessible to everyone. DeSci represents a future of science that is open, collaborative, and inclusive. This is not a passing fad, but a profound change in the way we approach progress. As this movement accelerates, it feels like we are witnessing the dawn of a new era that will be truly transformative for humanity.
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