MT Capital Research: Current Status and Future Prospects of the DeSci

By Xinwei

TL;DR

• GenomesDAO

• GenomesDAO is a biotechnology decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focused on the monetization of genomic data. It combines decentralized finance (DeFi) concepts to ensure the security, privacy, and audibility of genomic data. The main features of GenomesDAO include:

Target Audience:GenomesDAO caters to individuals and organizations, offering individuals whole-genome sequencing services, personalized genomic reports, and secure personal DNA vault storage. For organizations, it provides technical support to create secure, participant-owned genomic databases.

Research Support:It provides researchers with access to high-quality genomic datasets, helping them understand disease causes and develop new drugs.

Token Usage:GENE tokens are used to pay for whole-genome sequencing services and as an incentive mechanism for querying their encrypted DNA data vaults.

GenomesDAO aims to promote the development of genomics research and drug innovation while ensuring the privacy of individuals. Through its platform, GenomesDAO transforms individual genetic data into valuable resources, while ensuring data security and privacy.

HairDAO

HairDAO is a decentralized organization dedicated to the treatment of hair loss, adopting an open-source investment and operational model. It aims to advance the research and development of hair loss treatments in a democratic manner and provide funding support for early-stage hair loss research and related companies.

Some features of HairDAO include:

• Diverse Participation: HairDAO encourages the involvement of people with various skills, whether technical or specific domain expertise.

• Reward Mechanism: Through its token $HAIR, HairDAO rewards those who contribute to solving the problem of hair loss. Users can earn $HAIR as a reward by uploading their anonymous, encrypted genomic data.

• Cultural Characteristics: Although focused on scientific research, HairDAO exhibits a light-hearted and humorous style on its website and Twitter, contrasting with traditional scientific projects. Its content expression and design style are eclectic, even with a certain humor characteristic of silent old movies.

• Meme Quality: In the DeSci field, HairDAO stands out with its “hair loss” theme and light-hearted, humorous image. Its Twitter even uses barbershop emoji symbols, enhancing its meme coin characteristics.

• VitaDAO

• VitaDAO, initiated by Molecule, is a decentralized biotechnology DAO for drug development and community management, leading in longevity research and development. As the world’s first biotechnology DAO, VitaDAO’s main goal is to advance longevity research, extending human lifespan and health span.

Some core features of VitaDAO include:

• Community Governance: VitaDAO is governed by community members holding $VITA tokens, focusing on funding early longevity research projects.

• Funded Projects: It has provided funding for over 20 research projects, totaling over $6 million, covering research on age-related diseases and the exploration of new therapies.

• Scope of Research: Supports research projects ranging from basic research to preclinical studies.

• Voting Rights of Token Holders: $VITA token holders participate in VitaDAO’s decision-making process, including the selection of funded projects, financial management, and governance activities.

• To encourage funding for early-stage longevity biomedicine research, VitaDAO combines innovative governance frameworks and financial tools like DAOs, NFTs, and AMMs. Running on Ethereum, VitaDAO not only jointly funds research but also digitizes research results into IP NFTs. VitaDAO’s Token VITA can be earned by contributing work, capital, or other resources (such as data and IP) to VitaDAO. Members holding VITA not only participate in VitaDAO’s democratic governance, guiding its research direction, but can also profit from its data repository and manage its intellectual property portfolio. This model promotes the innovation and democratization of scientific research, while providing community members with direct opportunities to participate in and benefit from scientific decision-making.

ResearchHub

• ResearchHub, founded by Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong, is a platform intended to change the traditional scientific journal publishing model. The platform recently completed a $5 million Series A funding on June 15. ResearchHub has created an alternative to traditional journals with its “Hub” system, allowing scientists or scholars to publicly publish and discuss scientific or academic content directly in these centers, bypassing the traditional publishing review process, accelerating the dissemination of information, and undergoing peer review post-publication.

• Activities on ResearchHub can earn ResearchCoin (RSC) rewards, an ERC-20 cryptocurrency issued on the Ethereum platform for scientific research. RSC is intended to incentivize the scientific community to share, review, and curate information. Users can earn RSC rewards by:

• Sharing PDFs of research papers (provided it does not infringe on copyrights)

• Commenting and discussing scientific research

• Peer reviewing scientific papers

• Receiving RSC tips from other users

• Developing open-source features

• Additionally, users can set RSC bounties for peer reviews, paper abstracts, or new methods in the lab. They can also fund research by pre-registering projects, raising cryptocurrency in forum posts before the research work begins. According to ResearchHub, activities on the platform continue to grow over time, especially peer review activities being most active and promising.

Challenges and Future Outlook of DeSci

Current technical and operational challenges in the DeSci field

Peer Review Mechanism: In DeSci, peer review remains a critical quality control step. For example, Ants-Review proposed a blockchain-based incentive protocol aimed at addressing the costly, inefficient, and centralized issues in traditional peer review. However, this system still faces key challenges such as determining reviewer qualifications, preventing malicious behavior, and cheating.Project Funding: Although blockchain provides a new “crowdfunding” model, funding for large scientific projects remains a challenge. Small projects can address funding issues with NFT (Non-Fungible Token) models, but large projects often require national-level investment.Privacy Protection: In DeSci, finding a balance between promoting transparency and collaboration and ensuring data confidentiality is crucial. Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology plays a key role in this regard.Diverse Participation: The composition of the DeSci community reflects the existing demographic characteristics of the crypto and scientific fields, with underrepresentation of women and other minority groups. This extends beyond gender differences to include diversity in race, geography, and economic background. This lack of diversity could lead to bias and limitations in research directions, restricting the range of problems DeSci can explore and solve. To increase inclusiveness, DeSci projects need to actively attract and encourage wider group participation. This might include providing educational resources, establishing partnerships, and ensuring that a variety of voices are heard in the decision-making process.

Long-term impact and potential development paths of DeSci

Innovative Fundraising Methods: Platforms like Gitcoin offer funding for projects through new mechanisms like quadratic funding.Intellectual Property Management: For example, the Molecule project has created a new way to manage intellectual property by building IP-NFTs (Intellectual Property Non-Fungible Tokens).Development of Data Markets: Open data markets will stimulate new forms of collaboration. Innovative database structures like DBDAO allow individuals to benefit from their data.Importance of Emergency Fundraising: DeSci’s ability to raise research funds during emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is particularly important. Traditional government funding is often allocated based on fiscal year budgets, which are not flexible or quick enough in face of emergencies. In contrast, DeSci leverages its decentralized nature to rapidly mobilize resources and focus funds on critical research and response measures. This speed and efficiency are unmatched by traditional fundraising methods. This rapid response in fundraising may become a key tool in responding to global public health emergencies in the future.

How to promote the integration of DeSci with traditional scientific fields

Transparent Funding Use and Management: Drawing on DeFi experience, DeSci can achieve more efficient fund utilization.Optimization of Resource Sharing: Through smart contracts, scientific equipment and other resources can be shared more conveniently, promoting efficient use of resources.Facilitation of Global Collaboration: Decentralized science can promote global collaboration, especially for projects requiring global environmental data.Application of AIGC Technology: Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) can be used to improve the productivity of scientific texts, helping to better present research results.Promoting Open Science and Interdisciplinary Collaboration: DeSci supports and strengthens the concept of open science, making scientific research and data accessible to all, increasing transparency and accessibility. This helps improve the quality and impact of scientific research. The DeSci environment encourages collaboration between different disciplines, breaking down traditional barriers with blockchain and smart contract technology. Interdisciplinary collaboration is particularly important for solving complex problems, such as climate change and public health crises.

Conclusions and Recommendations

- For research institutions and investors, DeSci provides a novel method of scientific funding and project management. For example, the case of VitaDAO shows that through the DeSci model, scientific projects can receive funding from specialized DAOs and be managed through votes by DAO members. This model offers transparency in the funding allocation process and allows funders to participate directly in the decision-making process.- DeSci’s current main goal is to address funding, organization, and transparency issues in scientific research. Utilizing the transparency and immutability of blockchain technology, DeSci offers a new model for scientific research funding and management. This model could promote closer cooperation between different research institutions and private funders, helping bridge the “valley of death” between basic research and clinical research. It also could provide more opportunities for young scientists to support non-traditional research.- DeSci greatly enhances the efficiency of academic publishing. By decentralizing the peer review and publishing process, it reduces publishing time and complexity, allowing scientific knowledge to be disseminated more quickly. DeSci, by providing an open and transparent platform, mitigates the monopoly problem in the traditional academic publishing market. This helps increase publication diversity, offering more researchers opportunities to publish, thereby promoting the diversification and democratization of scientific research.

Reference

1. https://ethereum.org/zh/desci/

2. https://foresightnews.pro/article/detail/16382

3. https://foresightnews.pro/article/detail/22045

4. https://www.odaily.news/post/5182369

5. https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_22259911?commTag=true

6. https://www.panewslab.com/zh/articledetails/o82w6dx81n41.html

7. https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/what-is-decentralized-science-aka-desci/

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