MT Capital Research Report Bull Market New Narrative, DeSci Track Current Situation and Future Prospects

Analyzing the MT Capital Bull Market Examining the New Narrative, DeSci Tracking the Present and Future Outlook

By Xinwei

TL;DR

The fusion of DeSci with Web3 and blockchain: DeSci combines blockchain technology to enhance key aspects of scientific research, such as peer review, funding sponsorship, intellectual property management, and data transparency.

How DeSci impacts scientific research: DeSci aims to improve the transparency, efficiency, and democratization of scientific research while providing new opportunities to address global challenges.

Challenges and future prospects: These include improving peer review mechanisms, funding support challenges, protecting data privacy, and enhancing diverse participation and integration of DeSci with traditional scientific fields.

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What is DeSci

The development of DeSci is closely linked to Web3 technology, particularly the rise of blockchain technology. It represents a new approach to scientific research, centered around leveraging blockchain technology to address fundamental issues in traditional scientific research. DeSci’s development focuses on improving peer review, funding sponsorship, intellectual property management, and enhancing data transparency and scrutiny, all of which are critical components of traditional scientific research processes.

The main features of DeSci include:

• Peer review and publication processes: Traditional scientific publication processes are managed by journals, which typically involve lengthy peer review and editorial work. Blockchain technology, particularly 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 sponsorship: Traditional scientific funding models often involve lengthy application processes and are susceptible to biases from review panels. Blockchain technology provides an alternative approach, allowing 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, driving the development of an open research market.
• Intellectual property management: In the field of DeSci, the introduction of intellectual property NFTs (IP-NFTs) allows researchers to share ownership of research projects and future outcomes. Molecule is a pioneer in this area, enabling scientists, biomedical researchers, and biotech companies to more easily access funding and commercialize their work through IP-NFTs.
• Data transparency and scrutiny: 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 Future of DeSci

• Simplified industrial transformation: Due to complex processes and ownership of intellectual property in universities or research institutions, the process of transforming academic achievements into industries is often lengthy and complicated. DeSci provides new opportunities for the commercialization of academic achievements and simplifies this process. By building intellectual property NFTs and other innovative mechanisms, DeSci helps researchers directly transform their scientific research into commercial products. Additionally, DeSci also helps venture capitalists discover “under-the-table” projects, those that are not widely known but have potential.
• Breaking traditional boundaries: DeSci is not limited to the field of scientific research alone; its concept and tools are equally applicable to arts, humanities, and even indigenous knowledge systems. Interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge sharing are important features of DeSci.
• Inspiring new forms of collaboration: Leveraging its decentralized nature, DeSci can foster global collaboration, especially for projects requiring global environmental data and multidisciplinary inputs. In this way, DeSci has the potential to address some of the most urgent global issues, such as climate change and public health crises.

The Key Technologies and Applications of DeSci

Blockchain and Smart Contracts: Blockchain plays a central role in DeSci, especially smart contracts. Smart contracts are automatically executing code snippets that can be used to automate various stages 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 associated with traditional publishing.

Decentralized Peer Review and Publishing Process: DeSci eliminates intermediaries in the traditional publishing process, such as journal coordination, through blockchain technology, thereby enhancing the accessibility and transparency of research outputs. For example, Ants Review facilitates direct interaction between authors and reviewers through smart contracts, incentivizing the process with tokens to improve the efficiency and quality of peer review.

Community-Funded Research: Blockchain technology is also used for crowdfunding, enabling scientists to directly connect with patients, biotech companies, or investors and drive the open research market. This funding model allows scientists to bypass traditional funding channels and receive support directly from the community. For instance, Molecule utilizes NFTs and DAOs to raise funds for scientific research, including drug development.

Intellectual Property Management: In DeSci, NFTs are used to manage and develop intellectual property, such as scientific data or articles. This enables more efficient sharing and commercialization of intellectual property while providing scientists and researchers with a new source of income. For example, Molecule utilizes IP-NFTs to share ownership of research projects and their future outcomes.

Data Transparency and Auditability: Data hosted on the blockchain increases transparency in scientific research, allowing scientists to easily access and store relevant research databases for more accurate research decision-making. DeSci leverages a unique feature of blockchain technology called “immutable network.” This means that once data is uploaded to the blockchain, it is nearly impossible to be deleted or modified. This feature is particularly crucial for safeguarding the integrity of scientific research and countering censorship, ensuring the freedom and objectivity of scientific exploration even in the face of political or societal pressures.

Decentralized Research Tools and Publishing Platforms: DeSci provides multifunctional decentralized platforms such as DeSci Node and LabDAO to support the research process, including seamless integration of various formats of reports, charts, code, and external APIs.

Establishment of Reputation System: To build a high-quality and trustworthy DeSci community, the platform needs to establish a comprehensive reputation system that tracks user interactions on the decentralized platform, such as likes, comments, and publications, to help establish credibility and expertise. Through blockchain technology, scientists’ contributions – whether it’s peer reviewing, sharing research data, or participating in professional training and guidance – can be recorded and authenticated through the issuance of NFTs. These NFTs serve not only as direct evidence of scientists’ contributions but also as a measure of their reputation in the scientific community. This system encourages scientists to actively participate in community building and knowledge sharing while providing a more objective and transparent way to evaluate and reward their work.

Academic social platform: ResearchGate in web2 has raised over 100M in funding. In web3, this kind of platform offers a new way for scientists, researchers, and other stakeholders to communicate and collaborate. Through such a social platform, scientists can share research findings, seek collaboration partners, and also provide VCs with a channel to discover and invest in potential research projects.

DeSci Ecosystem Projects

Molecule

Molecule is a decentralized biotech research fundraising platform, with around 40 scientists currently seeking funding support for their projects on the platform. Inspired by the citizen science movement and the concept of open pharmaceutical development, Molecule originated from the patient community with the aim of advancing and funding early-stage drug development. Molecule is built on Ethereum and consists of two major systems: Molecule Discovery and Molecule Finance. These systems create a vibrant ecosystem for decentralized modular drug development. Molecule utilizes a combination of smart contracts and legal contracts, forming NFTs (IP-NFTs) for intellectual property. This novel mechanism allows anyone to share ownership of research projects and their future outcomes, such as intellectual property, royalties, and data. Molecule goes beyond the basic functionality of its own website and has established a complete and extensive ecosystem, enabling 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 on blockchain technology, aimed at supporting medical research and the development of artificial intelligence. It establishes a bridge between patients willing to donate medical data and researchers in need of such data through Polygon and its own token system ($LAKE). The platform’s goal is to facilitate the discovery of disease treatment methods and new therapies, thereby improving healthcare services and patient outcomes.

Data Lake works by obtaining medical data access permissions from donors’ healthcare providers, anonymizing the data so that it can be safely used by researchers. Additionally, the platform allows hospitals and data donors to share in the economic benefits generated by medical data, incentivizing more individuals and institutions to participate in the sharing of medical data. In this way, Data Lake protects personal privacy while promoting advances in medical research.

GenomesDAO

GenomesDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focused on monetizing genomic data in biotechnology. It combines the concept of decentralized finance (DeFi) to ensure the security, privacy, and audibility of genomic data. Here are the main features of GenomesDAO:

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

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

Token Application: The GENE token is used to pay for whole genome sequencing services and serves as an incentive mechanism for querying encrypted DNA data stored in their personal DNA vault.

GenomesDAO aims to promote the development of genetics research and innovation in new drugs while safeguarding individual privacy. Through its platform, GenomesDAO transforms individual genomic data into a valuable resource, ensuring the security and privacy of the data.

HairDAO

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

Here are some features of HairDAO:

Diversity of Participation: HairDAO encourages individuals with various skills, whether technical or specialized knowledge in specific fields, to join.

Incentive Mechanism: Through its token $HAIR, HairDAO rewards people who contribute to solving hair loss problems. Users can upload their anonymous, encrypted genomic data to earn $HAIR as a reward.

Cultural Characteristics: While focusing on scientific research, HairDAO showcases a relaxed and humorous style on its website and Twitter, contrasting traditional scientific research projects. Its content expression and design style are versatile and even have a humorous quality reminiscent of silent films.

Meme Personality: In the field of DeSci, HairDAO stands out with its “hair loss” theme and lighthearted image, even using salon emoji symbols on Twitter, enhancing its characteristics as a meme coin.

VitaDAO

VitaDAO is a decentralized biotechnology DAO initiated by Molecule for drug development and community management in the field of longevity. As the world’s first biotechnology DAO, VitaDAO’s primary goal is to advance longevity research and extend human and healthy lifespan.

Here are some key features of VitaDAO:

Community Governance: VitaDAO is governed by community members who hold $VITA tokens, focusing on funding early-stage longevity research projects.

Funding Projects: It has funded more than 20 research projects, totaling over $6 million, covering research on age-related diseases and exploration of new therapies.

Research Scope: Supported research projects include basic research and preclinical research.

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

To incentivize funding for early-stage longevity biomedicine research, VitaDAO combines innovative governance frameworks and financial tools such as DAO, NFT, and AMM. Operating on Ethereum, VitaDAO not only co-funds research but also digitizes research outcomes 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 holding VITA can not only participate in VitaDAO’s democratic governance, guiding its research direction but also benefit from its data repository and manage their intellectual property portfolios. This model promotes innovation and democratization in scientific research while providing community members with opportunities for direct participation in scientific decision-making and benefits.

ResearchHub

ResearchHub was founded by Brian Armstrong, co-founder of Coinbase, with the aim of changing the traditional scientific journal publishing model. The platform recently completed a $5 million Series A funding round on June 15th. ResearchHub has created a “Hub” system that serves as an alternative to traditional journals, allowing scientists or scholars to openly publish and discuss scientific or academic content in these hubs, bypassing the traditional peer review process, accelerating the dissemination of information, and conducting peer review after publication.

Users on ResearchHub can earn ResearchCoins (RSC) as rewards, which is an ERC-20 cryptocurrency issued on the Ethereum platform for scientific research. RSC aims to incentivize the sharing, review, and curation of information within the scientific community. Users can earn RSC rewards through the following activities:

• Sharing research papers’ PDFs (as long as they do not infringe copyright)
• Commenting and discussing scientific research
• Peer reviewing scientific papers
• Receiving RSC tips from other users
• Developing open-source features

In addition, users can also set RSC bounties for peer reviewing, paper abstracts, or new methods in the lab. It is also possible to fund research by “pre-registering” projects and raising cryptocurrencies in forum posts before the research work begins. According to ResearchHub, activities on the platform are growing over time, with peer-review activities being particularly active and promising.

Comparison between DeSci and Traditional Scientific Research Environment

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

Challenges and Future Prospects of DeSci

Current Technical and Operational Challenges in DeSci Field

Peer Review Mechanism: In DeSci, peer review is still a crucial quality control step. For example, Ants-Review has proposed a blockchain-based incentive protocol to address the expensive, inefficient, and centralized issues in traditional peer review. However, this system still faces some key problems, such as determining review qualifications and preventing malicious behavior and cheating.

Project Funding: While blockchain provides a new crowdfunding model, funding large-scale research projects remains a challenge. Small projects can use the NFR (Non-Fungible Rights) model to solve funding issues, but large projects often require investment at the national level.

Privacy Protection: In DeSci, striking a balance between promoting transparency, collaboration, and ensuring data confidentiality is crucial. Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology plays a key role in this aspect.

Diversity and Inclusion: The composition of the DeSci community reflects the existing demographics in the cryptocurrency and scientific fields, with underrepresentation of women and other minority groups. This is not limited to gender disparities but also involves diversity in race, geography, and economic background. This lack of diversity can lead to biases and limitations in research directions, restricting the range of problems DeSci can explore and solve. To enhance inclusivity, the DeSci project needs to actively attract and encourage participation from a wider range of groups. This may include providing educational resources, establishing partnerships, and ensuring diverse voices are heard in decision-making processes.

Long-term Impacts and Potential Development Paths of DeSci

Innovative Fundraising Methods: Platforms like Gitcoin provide funding for projects through mechanisms such as quadratic funding.

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

Development of Data Markets: Open data markets will inspire new forms of collaboration. Innovative database structures like DBDAO allow individuals to benefit from their own data.

Importance of Emergency Fundraising: DeSci’s ability to raise research funds in response to emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is particularly important. Traditional government funding is often allocated according to the fiscal year budget, which may not be flexible and quick enough in the face of emergencies. In contrast, DeSci, with its decentralized nature, can quickly mobilize resources and concentrate funds for critical research and response measures. This speed and efficiency are unparalleled by traditional fundraising methods. This rapid response fundraising approach may become a key tool in dealing with global health emergencies in the future.

Promoting Integration between DeSci and Traditional Scientific Fields

Transparent Fund Usage and Management: Leveraging DeFi experience, DeSci can achieve more efficient fund utilization.

Optimization of resource sharing: Through smart contracts, scientific research equipment and other resources can be shared more conveniently, promoting efficient resource usage.

Promotion of global collaboration: Decentralized science using blockchain technology can promote collaboration on a global scale, especially for projects that require global environmental data.

Application of AIGC technology: Artificial Intelligence Content Generation (AIGC) can be used to enhance the productivity of scientific research texts, helping to better showcase research findings.

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

Conclusion and Recommendations

For research institutions and investors, DeSci offers a novel approach to fundraising and project management. For example, the case of VitaDAO demonstrates that through the DeSci model, research projects can obtain funding support from domain-specific DAOs and be managed through voting by DAO members. This model provides researchers with transparency in the funding allocation process and allows fund providers to directly participate in decision-making.

The primary goal of DeSci at present is to address funding, organization, and transparency issues in scientific research. Leveraging the transparency and immutability of blockchain technology, DeSci provides a new model for fundraising and management of scientific research. This model may facilitate closer collaboration between different research institutions and private funders, helping to narrow 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 unconventional research.

DeSci significantly improves the efficiency of academic publishing. By decentralizing the peer review and publication process, it reduces publication time and complexity, allowing scientific knowledge to spread more quickly. DeSci alleviates the monopolistic issues in the traditional academic publishing market by providing an open and transparent platform. This helps to increase publishing diversity and provides more opportunities for researchers to publish, thereby promoting the diversification and democratization of scientific research.

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