1. Industry Background and Current Situation Analysis

1.1 Overview of DeSci

From the era of manual craftsmanship relying on human collaboration in workshop-style production, to the mechanized era restructuring of factory systems powered by steam; from the electrification era standardized economies of scale driven by assembly lines, to the information era global supply chain revolution sparked by computer technology; and now, the AI era algorithm-driven intelligent decision-making network—every technological revolution reshapes the organizational form of production factors. The emergence of blockchain technology, for the first time, achieved ‘trust automation’ through mathematical protocols, enabling on-chain confirmation of intellectual property rights, decentralized circulation of data assets, and value distribution led by smart contracts. Through knowledge and data storage on the chain, DeSci (Decentralized Science) is leading a disruptive technological paradigm revolution, attempting to liberate science from the closed ivory tower, and the underlying logic of human production relations is undergoing a paradigm-level leap.

Earlier, the DeSci track experienced a wave of hot secondary markets, which has now gradually cooled down. In the previous wave, it was an expected financial manifestation, appearing in forms such as Memecoin. We cannot deny the DeSci track because of this. On the contrary, we should conduct in-depth analysis at present, understand the real value behind DeSci, and the impact on the future shift of technological paradigms.

Hard technology paradigm shift

The core concept of DeSci includes the following key aspects:

· Incentive Mechanism: Reshaping the Value Distribution of Scientific Research
DeSci completely changes the traditional value distribution model in scientific research by introducing a blockchain-based incentive system. Researchers can obtain academic recognition and economic rewards through token economy, NFT papers, or reputation system, which not only encourages widespread sharing of knowledge, but also provides new pathways for the monetization of research results.

· Decentralization: Restructuring the Power Structure of Scientific Research
In traditional research models, funding allocation and outcome evaluation are often controlled by a few centralized institutions, leading to uneven resource distribution and restricted innovation. DeSci, through community-driven models such as DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), decentralizes power to the research community, achieving democratic resource allocation.

· Lowering the threshold of scientific research: promoting the democratization of scientific research
DeSci greatly reduces the barriers to participation in scientific research through decentralized infrastructure such as open data platforms, distributed computing resources, etc. Researchers from developing countries, independent scientists, and citizen scientists can all have equal access to global scientific resources and contribute their efforts.

- Data Transparency: Rebuilding the Academic Trust System
The traceable nature of blockchain technology provides technical support for the transparency and verifiability of scientific research data. From experimental design to data collection, and then to publication of results, every step can be recorded and publicly verified. This can effectively curb academic misconduct and enhance public trust in scientific research.

DeSci’s essence is a return to the essence of science - science should be the common wealth of all humanity, not the exclusive domain of a few institutions or elites. In the traditional scientific research model, the creation and dissemination of knowledge are controlled by layers of intermediaries, leading to science gradually deviating from its original intention of openness and collaboration. DeSci, through technological means, attempts to break down these barriers and bring science back to its decentralized essence. It is not only a technological innovation but also a revolution in the philosophy of science.

1.2 The essential difference between DeSci and the traditional scientific research system

1.2.1 Collaboration Mode: From Fragmented Confrontation to Organic Collaboration

The traditional research system presents a typical ‘triangular alienation’ structure: funding agencies (government/companies), groups of scientists, and publishers form a closed loop of interests, but lack a mechanism for value alignment.

Funders often evaluate research output based on short-term KPIs, forcing scientists to pursue ‘publishable results’ rather than solving real problems;

Scientists have to devote a large amount of effort to project applications and compliance processes rather than in-depth research in order to secure continuous funding.

Publishers monopolize academic communication channels, charging high subscription fees (global scientific publishing market annual revenue exceeds 19 billion USD), without providing reasonable returns to knowledge producers.

This fragmentation results in over 30% of global research funding (about $60 billion) being wasted on repetitive or irreproducible experiments. DeSci, through an intelligent contract-driven collaboration framework, reconstructs the tripartite relationship:

· The sponsor can pool funds through the DAO and set long-term goals (such as ‘delaying aging’), with community voting determining resource allocation;
· Scientists earn token rewards based on data contributions, open-source code, or experiment reproducibility, with economic returns directly linked to actual value creation;
· Publishers’ role is replaced by NFT papers and decentralized storage, reducing the cost of knowledge dissemination by over 90%.

1.2.2 Crossing the ‘Valley of Death’: From Linear Breakage to Closed-loop Acceleration

The essence of the traditional ‘valley of death’ in the transformation of production, education, and research is the failure of the knowledge transfer system: in the chain of basic research (papers) → applied development (patents) → commercial transformation (products), each stage is led by different entities and lacks incentive mechanisms to connect. For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States invests $45 billion annually, but only 0.4% of basic research results enter the clinical trial stage; the crux lies in: pharmaceutical companies lock up experimental data to protect commercial secrets, leading to trial and error (costing $2.6 billion per drug in just the preclinical research stage); at the same time, venture capital tends to support later-stage mature projects, making it difficult for early breakthrough research to receive support.

The ‘Valley of Death’ between industry, academia, and research, Source: Translational Medicine Communications

DeSci aims to break the barriers to traditional research funding distribution and promote more efficient research collaboration by introducing blockchain and Web3 technologies. Unlike the isolated nature of traditional models, DeSci enables funders, scientists, and publishers to achieve deeper collaboration through decentralized mechanisms, addressing issues of funding, data sharing, and transparent research outcomes. DeSci constructs a transformation accelerator through technological-economic paradigm innovation:

· Technology IP Tokenization: For example, the Molecule platform transforms drug R&D intellectual property into IP-NFT, allowing investors to purchase equity in segments. Studies have shown that this approach shortens the financing cycle of early-stage biopharmaceutical projects by 60%;
· Data liquidity: Platforms like Ocean Protocol establish data trading markets, allowing researchers to securely share data and receive benefits through privacy computing technology. Over 20PB of biomedical data has been successfully uploaded to the chain.
· Community support mechanism: VitaDAO uses a three-stage token distribution model of ‘research-development-commercialization’ to allow basic researchers to continue receiving 5%-15% of the proceeds through smart contracts after the drug is on the market, forming a closed-loop incentive.
· Efficient fund allocation: Through DAO and tokenized economic model, DeSci provides transparent and efficient fund support to avoid resource waste. For example, VitaDAO provides funding for anti-aging research through DAO and supports 24 projects.
· Decentralized Publishing: DeSci has changed the way research results are produced and disseminated, ensuring the transparency and verifiability of results through blockchain, reducing publishing costs, and decreasing the monopoly influence of traditional publishers.
· Ownership and Transparent Review of Scientific Research: The immutability of blockchain ensures the ownership of scientific research results, while smart contracts record the review process, enhancing review transparency, and ensuring the fairness and efficiency of research.

Traditional scientific research compared to DeSci, Source: Bio.xyz

Overall, DeSci promotes the transparency, efficiency, and collaboration of scientific research through decentralized technology, addressing various shortcomings in traditional research models. It not only changes funding allocation, data sharing, and publication processes, but also accelerates the transformation of research results through community collaboration, promoting a more open and inclusive scientific environment and creating a more promising research environment.

1.2.3 Value Distribution: From Centralized Extraction to Ecological Win-Win

In the traditional system, the research value is monopolized by a few centralized nodes:

· The publisher Elsevier’s gross margin has long been maintained at 37%, far exceeding tech giants such as Apple (24%);
· The processing fee for a single article in the top journal ‘Nature’ can be as high as $11,390, but 97% of the reviewers work voluntarily;
Pharmaceutical giants rely on patent barriers to obtain windfall profits (the average net profit margin of the world’s top ten pharmaceutical companies is 18.7%), while the original discoverers are often marginalized.

In contrast, DeSci uses programmable value flow restructuring allocation logic:

· Contribution quantification: With the help of the on-chain reputation system (such as DeSci Labs’ Karma score), behaviors such as paper citations, code submissions, experiment replications, etc. are converted into tradable credit assets;
· Dynamic allocation: Smart contracts automatically allocate profits, for example, the BioDAO project injects 30% of patent income into the community treasury, distributes 45% according to contributions to researchers, and rewards early investors with 25%.
· Long-tail activation: African scientists share laboratory equipment through LabDAO, reducing research costs by 70%, and obtaining global funding support based on data contributions.

The difference between DeSci and traditional scientific research is not only the upgrading of technical tools but also the restructuring of production relations. When scientific breakthroughs are no longer constrained by institutional boundaries, geographical limitations, or power rent-seeking, humanity may enter a new era of ‘collective wisdom eruption.’ Just as the GitHub open-source community gave birth to ChatGPT, the collaborative innovation of millions of researchers in the DeSci ecosystem may solve complex challenges that individual countries or enterprises cannot overcome in the next decade (such as Alzheimer’s therapy or controlled nuclear fusion). The ultimate goal of this transformation is to bring science back to its purest essence: evidence-based, open sharing, and serving the well-being of all humanity.

1.3 Market Size and Key Participants

1.3.1 Market Size

Currently, the market size of the DeSci field has approached nearly 1 billion US dollars. Although it is still in the early exploration stage, its Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is expected to exceed 35% in the next five years, demonstrating the potential for exponential expansion. This growth is not only driven by the mature application of blockchain technology but also benefits from the pain point of imbalanced global research funding allocation: the traditional research market invests over 200 billion US dollars annually, but a large amount of funds are wasted due to bureaucratic processes and inefficient management of centralized institutions. The rise of DeSci is reshaping this landscape: through token incentives, decentralized governance, and open collaboration, its market size is expected to exceed 50 billion US dollars by 2030, becoming a vertical track in Web3 field that is on par with finance and AI.

DeSci’s potential has attracted dual attention from the cryptocurrency industry and the academic community. Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, has repeatedly emphasized the disruptive significance of DeSci for ‘open science.’ Cryptocurrency leaders such as CZ, the founder of Binance, Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, and Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, have endorsed it through investment and support. In addition, top investors such as Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Paradigm, and Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase, have regarded DeSci as the ‘next-generation research infrastructure.’ Leading VCs like a16z, Polychain Capital, and Digital Currency Group have also made strategic deployments, with a focus on biopharmaceutical DAOs (such as VitaDAO) and decentralized data protocols (such as Ocean Protocol).

DeSci ecosystem project map, Source: Messari Research

1.3.2 Main Players

1.3.2.1 Molecule

Molecule was founded in 2021 and is a decentralized protocol dedicated to disrupting the traditional biotechnology research and development model. The project aims to establish a new financing ecosystem for early-stage biological research and innovatively introduce biotechnology intellectual property (IP) on-chain, pioneering the concept of IP-NFT, known as the “OpenSea of biotechnology.”

Based on IP-NFT, Molecule has built a market for translational research, aiming to facilitate efficient connection between researchers and funders. On the Molecule Discovery platform, researchers can submit research proposals, and funders can evaluate the proposals and negotiate cooperation terms with the research teams. In this way, Molecule provides strong support for the translation of basic research into practical applications, promoting the rapid implementation of medical research from theory to practice. As a decentralized drug development platform, it tokenizes biopharmaceutical intellectual property through the IP-NFT model, facilitating the flow of over $200 million in research funds and establishing partnerships with pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Bayer.

1.3.2.2 VitaDAO

VitaDAO is a community-driven decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) dedicated to providing early funding support for longevity research. VitaDAO proposes a new solution to the early funding shortage and technological monopoly in traditional biopharmaceuticals, particularly in longevity research. By introducing blockchain and crypto-economic incentive mechanisms, VitaDAO is committed to helping scientific research projects in the longevity field obtain crucial initial funding support. In return, VitaDAO will directly hold the intellectual property (IP) and data rights of the supported research outcomes and integrate these rights into a publicly accessible asset portfolio. The organization promotes the further development and utilization of these intellectual property rights through data markets or the authorization and commercialization pathways of traditional biopharmaceuticals, while also realizing the tokenization of assets and issuing native governance token—$VITA. Individuals or organizations can obtain $VITA tokens by contributing work, funds, or other resources (such as data or intellectual property). Owners of $VITA tokens can participate in the curation and governance of VitaDAO assets and its research.

1.3.2.3 BIO Protocol

As the first project in the DeSci field to receive investment from Binance Labs, BIO Protocol has attracted wide attention. In addition to Binance Labs, the project has also received strong support from many well-known venture capital institutions in the encryption and biotechnology fields, including 1kx, Boost VC, Sora Ventures, Zee Prime Capital, and the biotechnology fund Northpond Ventures, with a total size of over $3 billion. In November 2024, BIO Protocol successfully completed the genesis stage of community financing, totaling $30.3 million, marking an important step for the project in community support and decentralized governance.

BIO Protocol’s core mission is to promote the rapid development of biotechnology. Through this protocol, patients, scientists, and biotechnology professionals worldwide can collectively participate in funding, construction, and sharing tokenized biotechnology projects and intellectual property (IP), injecting more possibilities for innovation into the field of biotechnology; BIO Protocol’s Launchpad platform will provide more efficient financing and liquidity support for innovative projects in the DeSci field, and by promoting the creation and development of BioDAO, accelerate the practical application of biotechnology. Project founder Paul Kohlhaas revealed that BIO’s Launchpad and token transfer functions are scheduled to be officially launched in the first quarter of 2025. BIO Protocol focuses on the issue of experimental reproducibility, builds an open-source scientific research protocol library, reduces global collaboration costs through standardized processes and on-chain verification, and currently covers over 1,200 biological experiments.

1.3.2.4 Ocean Protocol

Ocean Protocol has received joint investment from Digital Currency Group and Jump Capital, and completed a $31 million Series B financing led by Borderless Capital in 2023, with a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Its core mission is to build decentralized data economy infrastructure and solve the problem of research data isolation. It has achieved two major technological breakthroughs: 1. Compute-to-Data: running analysis algorithms without moving data, Mayo Clinic has increased the efficiency of breast cancer genome analysis by 35 times; 2. Data NFTization: supporting data set rights confirmation and graded transactions, hosting 20PB of high-value biomedical data. In addition, Ocean Protocol has partnered with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to build a global agricultural research data pool, covering 230 million datasets in 67 countries; in Q2 2024, the data transaction volume reached $170 million, with a 220% increase in privacy computation requests compared to the previous quarter.

Its CEO Bruce Pon announced that in 2025, it will integrate federated learning and ZK-proof technology to launch ‘Cross-Chain Data Federation’ to support secure sharing of clinical data between pharmaceutical companies.

1.3.2.5 Gitcoin Grants

Gitcoin Grants has received strategic investments from the Ethereum Foundation and Protocol Labs, with an additional $15 million funding from a16z in 2024, bringing the total funding to $68 million. Its core mission is to democratize open-source scientific crowdfunding through Quadratic Funding. Gitcoin Grants has funded over 1,700 open-source scientific projects, with a 3.2 times higher fund utilization rate compared to traditional scientific research funds. It plans to launch ‘Impact Derivatives’ in 2025, allowing investors to engage in prediction market trading based on the social value of research outcomes.

1.3.2.6 Lab DAO

LabDAO is backed by Vitalik Buterin’s personal angel investment and the Arweave Ecosystem Fund, and will close a $12 million seed round led by Pantera Capital in 2024. The core mission is to build a distributed laboratory network and lower the threshold for global scientific research resources. LabDAO has achieved 1,400+ open-source SOPs for biological experiments, with a 92% on-chain verification pass rate. In addition, access to 420 specialized instruments in 67 countries enabled the African team to reduce R&D costs by 70 percent. Founder Niklas Rindtorff said that in 2025, the “Automated Experiment Protocol Engine” will be launched, and 50% of the basic experiments will be fully automated through AI+robots.

1.3.2.7 Research hub

ResearchHub was founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. Similar to the revolutionary role of GitHub in the field of software engineering, ResearchHub firmly believes that scientific records should not be confined behind paywalls or restricted to the academic ivory tower, but should be a public resource accessible to everyone. The core mission of ResearchHub is to break the closed nature of traditional academic research. By providing a completely open and paywall-free platform, ResearchHub enables scholars and non-scholars to participate in scientific research in a transparent and collaborative manner. The abstracts on the platform are written in plain and understandable English, further lowering the barrier to access scientific knowledge, allowing more people to understand and participate in scientific discussions. To incentivize this open collaborative behavior, ResearchHub has introduced ResearchCoin, which rewards users who actively contribute and share research results.

On ResearchHub, researchers can freely publish articles (whether preprints or postprints) and exchange views in an open forum dedicated to discussing relevant research. This model aims to address the inefficiencies in the current academic publishing system. The traditional process, from funding application, completing research, submission, peer review to final publication, often takes 3-5 years, seriously slowing down the pace of scientific progress. ResearchHub believes that through its open collaborative platform, the efficiency of scientific research can be increased by at least an order of magnitude.

ResearchHub Interface Example

2. Valuation

DeSci compared with other Web3 fields

The overall market value of the DeSci track is currently about 1 billion US dollars, with a daily trading volume maintained in the range of 8-12 million US dollars. The market value/trading volume ratio (MC/TV) reaches 8-15 times, significantly higher than traditional technology stocks (S&P 500 average MC/TV is about 0.3 times) and even mainstream cryptocurrency tracks (DeFi average MC/TV is about 3 times). This abnormal ratio reveals the deep logic of the market:

· Expected Premium: Investors regard DeSci as the “DeFi revolution in the scientific research field” and are willing to pay a premium for the technology vision that has not yet fully materialized. Similar phenomena have occurred in 2017 with IPFS (MC/TV peaked at 28x) and in 2020 with DeFi Summer (COMP initial market cap to TV ratio of 22x), while DeSci is currently valued within a reasonable range for similar early-stage technologies.

· Structural differentiation: Top projects (such as Molecule, Ocean Protocol) account for 65% of market value share, but their trading volume only accounts for 30%, indicating that capital prefers to hold core infrastructure for the long term; while small and medium-sized projects (such as LabDAO, ResearchHub), although they have a low market value share, contribute to 70% of the trading volume, reflecting the market’s speculative layout on early innovative targets.

Market capitalization ranking of DeSci related tokens, source: Coingecko

Although DeSci is relatively small in scale, the participation of institutional investors has shown unique characteristics:

· The core logic of the head fund: a16z’s investment portfolio in the DeSci field allocates 80% of the funds to underlying protocols (such as data storage, IP tokenization tools), and only 20% to application layer projects, demonstrating their commitment to the ‘infrastructure first’ strategy. This is highly similar to their early investments in Ethereum (2014) and Coinbase (2013) paths.

· Whale’s behavior pattern: On-chain data shows that among the addresses holding more than $100,000 worth of DeSci tokens, 55% have a holding period of more than 1 year, far higher than the market average of 28%. These investors are more focused on the technical roadmap rather than short-term price fluctuations, for example, the stake rate of VitaDAO token $VITA has been maintained at over 72% for a long time.

· Cross-track collaboration: Traditional pharmaceutical companies are starting to acquire innovative resources through the DeSci ecosystem. For example, Pfizer outsourced early drug discovery in the form of NFT licenses through the Molecule platform, saving 40% of R&D costs. This hybrid model of ‘traditional capital + DeSci technology’ is reshaping the valuation system.

In addition, in the DeSci track, the explanatory power of traditional financial indicators is failing, and a new evaluation framework is needed. For example, the number of citations for NFT papers: The average number of citations for NFT papers on the DeSci Labs platform is 7.2, which is three times that of traditional open-access journals.

3. Future Development Forecast

3.1 Analysis of Innovative Projects: Pythia - The Intersection of Brain-Machine Interface and Cryptoeconomics

Three months after Neuralink successfully achieved the first human-brain-machine interface implantation, a groundbreaking study at Neiry Laboratory [10] of Moscow State University converted brain waves into encrypted assets, causing a sensation in the crypto community. The laboratory implanted an artificial intelligence chip into an experimental mouse named Pythia and connected it to customized GPT and DeepSeek models, enabling it to answer simple yes/no questions by controlling buttons with brain waves. This seemingly advanced experiment not only revealed the potential of integrating biology with artificial intelligence but also gave birth to the PYTHIA token, whose market value skyrocketed to $50 million within just 10 days of its release, becoming one of the most controversial cryptocurrency stories in the Web3 space. The Pythia project not only demonstrates the broad prospects of brain-machine interface technology but also pioneers a new ‘biomining’ model, converting brain waves into tradable digital assets, marking the emergence of the bio-data economy.

Now, the market value of the PYTHIA token has steadily rebounded from its lowest point of $4 million to $11 million. Unlike other flash-in-the-pan Meme projects, Pythia has solidified its position in the DeSci field through continuous development and innovation. Even in the overall bearish market, the PYTHIA token continues to show strong upward momentum. So, what exactly is Pythia? Why is it causing such a stir in the crypto world?

The core of the Pythia project lies in its groundbreaking ‘Brain-Machine Interface Encryption Singularity’ technology. The Neiry lab connected the brain of the experimental mouse Pythia to a customized GPT-4 model, successfully converting brainwave signals into programmable instructions, achieving bidirectional interaction between biological entities and artificial intelligence. This technological breakthrough not only includes neural pulse verbalization (converting brainwaves into executable instructions) but also covers the tokenization of brainwave data—converting brainwave data into tradable digital assets through ERC-1155 standard NFTs. Based on this experiment, the Pythia project quickly evolved from a scientific experiment into a symbol of the cryptoeconomy, giving rise to the $PYTHIA token.

NeiryLab-Pythia Official Website

Another major innovation of the Pythia project is its ‘Thinking is Mining’ system. Users can convert meditation, focus, and other brain activities into token rewards by wearing the EEG headband developed by Neiry Lab. This ‘Biological StepN’ model transforms the activity of the human brain cortex into economic value, creating a new way of obtaining digital assets. At the same time, Neiry Lab has also launched two revolutionary devices - Mind Tracker and Brainy headphones, providing users with brainwave monitoring and stress management functions. These devices not only help users reduce emotional disturbances in cryptocurrency trading but also enhance attention and decision-making abilities through real-time monitoring of brain activity. By using $PYTHIA tokens to pay for the device costs, users can also enjoy discounts, further promoting the utility and circulation of the tokens.

The vision of the Pythia project goes far beyond the token economy. The Neiry Lab is developing Neural Data Oracle technology, aiming to convert brainwave signals into verifiable sources of randomness, thereby promoting deep integration of blockchain and biological data. In addition, the lab plans to launch a cognitive enhancement DApp store based on real-time brainwave data, providing users with applications for meditation, learning, and mental health optimization. These technological breakthroughs not only lay the foundation for the future development of brain-computer interfaces but also provide possibilities for the rise of the ‘consciousness economy.’ Pythia may become a template for the integration of Web3 and brain-computer interfaces. Furthermore, against the backdrop of US-Russia cooperation, potential cooperation between Pythia and Elon Musk’s Neuralink is also worth looking forward to.

The future development direction of 3.2 DeSci

DeSci is reshaping the underlying logic of human knowledge production along a disruptive path. At the core of this transformation is the dual innovation of technological tools and collaborative paradigms, creating a global research network that transcends geographical boundaries and breaks through power monopolies.

· DeSci + AI Agent - Reshaping the Paradigm of Scientific Research

With the deep integration of DeSci and AI Agent (Artificial Intelligence Agent), scientific research is undergoing an unprecedented paradigm shift. DeSci breaks the centralized barriers of traditional academic systems through blockchain technology, achieving the transparency, verifiability, and openness of scientific data; while AI Agent injects new efficiency and insight into scientific research with its powerful data processing capabilities and automation. The combination of the two will not only accelerate the process of scientific discovery, but also redefine the way scientific collaboration is conducted.

In the future, the combination of DeSci and AI Agent will give birth to a series of innovative applications. For example, a research funding allocation system based on smart contracts can evaluate the feasibility and potential impact of projects through AI Agent, ensuring efficient use of resources; a decentralized research collaboration platform can use AI Agent to achieve peer review, interdisciplinary and cross-regional real-time collaboration, breaking the traditional research island effect; and even AI Agent can analyze global research data to predict emerging research areas and provide scientists with forward-looking research directions.

· From Funding Research to the application of the research, building a sustainable scientific ecosystem

Currently, DeSci’s core focus remains on the collection and allocation of research funds, achieving transparent and decentralized fund flow through blockchain technology. However, as the DeSci ecosystem gradually matures, participants and supporters are no longer satisfied with mere concepts and visions. They are increasingly eager to see tangible outcomes and perceptible value returns. Therefore, DeSci’s future development must transition from ‘Funding Research’ to ‘Application Landing’, building a sustainable scientific ecosystem that not only stimulates innovation but also delivers practical outputs.

In the case of the Asian market, DeSci’s main activities currently focus on research fundraising and donations, a model that is often seen as a ‘partially illusory concept’ by Asian users against the backdrop of East-West cultural differences, leading to relatively low acceptance in this region. However, the Asian market not only has strong purchasing power but also harbors enormous innovation potential, making it an important force in the global scientific ecosystem that cannot be ignored. To reverse this bias, DeSci needs to pay more attention to showcasing tangible results and allow Asian users to truly feel its value through localized promotional strategies. For example, DeSci can engage in deep cooperation with Asian research institutions, companies, and communities to promote more research projects that meet local needs, such as the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine and environmental management technologies, in order to gain wider recognition and support.

In this way, DeSci can not only break through cultural barriers, but also establish a solid user base in the Asian market, injecting new vitality into the sustainable development of the global scientific ecosystem.

4. In-depth Summary: DeSci’s Paradigm Revolution and Future Vision

DeSci (Decentralized Science) is revolutionizing the core aspects of scientific research - funding models, knowledge sharing mechanisms, and intellectual property management - through blockchain technology. Although the industry is still in its early stages, the explosive power it demonstrates far exceeds the iterative speed of traditional scientific research systems. This transformation is not only the application of technology but also a return to the essence of scientific democratization and globalization. Its impact will penetrate the dual boundaries of the scientific community and the blockchain industry, reshaping the future of human knowledge production.

However, any new thing born during the development of the times needs to be viewed dialectically. Taking Bio Protocol as an example, a sampling audit of 1,200 experimental protocols on its platform in 2023 showed that only 68% passed the foundational peer review, significantly lower than the industry benchmark of 85% for traditional journals. This double-edged sword effect of ‘data democratization’ exposes the vulnerability of quality control mechanisms in open collaboration models—when the entry barriers of the research process are lowered, unverified ‘junk data’ may pollute the knowledge commons under the guise of decentralization. The more fundamental challenge lies in the lagging legal framework: 23% of IP-NFT transactions on the Molecule platform were forced to halt due to jurisdictional conflicts over the recognition of on-chain intellectual property carriers, reflecting the cognitive gap in the current regulatory system regarding the tokenization of ‘research assets.’ These contradictions reveal a deep paradox: while DeSci attempts to deconstruct the authoritative system of traditional research through technological means, it inevitably needs to build new trust infrastructure and rules consensus.

1. Three core rebuilds and breakthrough practices
   · Decentralized funding model: 70% of traditional research funding is constrained by government or corporate agendas, while DeSci enables funds to flow to projects truly driven by value through DAO crowdfunding, IP tokenization (such as Molecule’s IP-NFT), and community governance. For example, VitaDAO has crowdfunded tokenized funding for over 50 aging research projects, with 3 already in clinical trial stages, far exceeding the early project conversion rate of traditional biopharmaceutical funds.
   · Upgrading the knowledge sharing paradigm: With NFT papers (such as DeSci Labs) and open protocol libraries (such as Bio Protocol), the reuse cost of research data is reduced by 80%, and the global collaboration efficiency is increased by 4 times. By 2023, the average citation frequency of on-chain papers reached 7.2 times, which is 3 times that of traditional journals, proving that open sharing can substantially accelerate scientific progress.
   · The on-chain revolution of IP management: DeSci migrates intellectual property from a closed patent system to programmable smart contracts. For example, Pfizer transforms early drug discovery research into IP-NFT on the Molecule platform, optimizing R&D costs by 40%. Original contributors can receive a continuous 15% share of commercialization stage, completely breaking the industry malaise of ‘inventor poverty’.
2. Growth Flywheel: The Triple Drive of Technology, Capital, and Policy
   · Mature technology stack: from the data layer (Arweave permanent storage) to the application layer (LabDAO distributed laboratory), the DeSci technology stack has supported 90% of the research process on-chain. In 2023, DeSci developer activity (GitHub commits) increased by 220% year-on-year, surpassing the growth rate of DeFi in the same period.
   · Capital structural shift: Traditional venture capital firms (such as a16z, Digital Currency Group) and pharmaceutical giants (such as Bayer, Novartis) have injected over $420 million into DeSci, with 35% of the funds flowing to research nodes in developing countries, driving global innovation network rebalancing.
   · Regulatory sandbox taking shape: The draft of the EU’s ‘Digital Science Act’ explicitly recognizes the legitimacy of DAO governance, and places like Singapore have opened up tax exemption channels for research tokens, unleashing policy dividends and opening up a compliant market worth hundreds of billions.
3. Challenge and Breakthrough Path
   · Technology-Academic Gap: Currently, only 12% of researchers are familiar with blockchain tools, but products like the ‘No-Code DAO Creator’ launched by DeSci Labs are reducing the participation threshold by 70%.
   · Short-term speculative risks: Although the trading spread of small and medium market value projects can reach 8%, the staking rate of leading protocols (such as Ocean Protocol) remains stable at over 65%, indicating the formation of long-term value consensus.
   · Regulatory Game: SEC investigates 17% of DeSci projects, but the industry successfully brings 83% of projects into compliance through the design of ‘Utility Token for Science’.
4. The next ten years: from edge experiments to mainstream infrastructure
   According to ARK Invest’s prediction, by 2030, the DeSci market size will surpass 500 billion U.S. dollars, covering 30% of global early-stage research projects. Its evolution may be divided into three stages:
   · 2023-2025 (Infrastructure Boom Period): IP tokenization protocol, decentralized peer review system (such as DeReview) standardized, driving market scale breakthrough of over 5 billion US dollars;
   · 2026-2028 (Vertical Integration Period): The first unicorn in the DeSci field with a valuation exceeding USD 10 billion, such as biomedicine and climate science, appears, with 20% of traditional journal content migrating to the chain.
   · 2029-2030 (Paradigm Dominance Period): DeSci mode solves at least 3 global scientific challenges (such as Alzheimer’s disease therapy), and becomes the core source of 70% of research funding in developing countries.

The ultimate goal of DeSci is not to replace traditional scientific research, but to build a ‘global scientific collaboration network’ through technological democratization. Here, botanists in Brazil can instantly access the genetic database in Norway, medical discoveries in Africa can quickly be commercialized through DAO, and every data contributor will receive permanent returns through smart contracts. When scientific breakthroughs are no longer restricted by geographical, institutional, or capital monopolies, humanity may usher in the greatest collaborative revolution after the Internet: the production and distribution of knowledge, truly belonging to all mankind for the first time. However, this transformation needs to traverse the ‘valley of death’ between technological ideals and real constraints—only by establishing sustainable value capture mechanisms, inclusive governance frameworks, and regulatory pathways can DeSci evolve from a marginal experiment into the next generation of scientific research infrastructure.

Acknowledgements: In the planning and writing of this article, we would like to thank Dr.UZ for his deep involvement and professional advice, which helped us improve the structure and content of the article. His valuable suggestions played an important role in the smooth completion of this article.

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