DeSci: The Scientific Equality Movement and the Trillion-Dollar Knowledge Economy Reconstruction Revolution

1. Industry Background and Current Situation Analysis

1.1 Overview of DeSci

From the era of handicrafts to the AI era, each technological revolution has reshaped the organization of production factors. The emergence of blockchain technology has achieved "trust automation" for the first time through mathematical protocols, making on-chain confirmation of intellectual property, decentralized circulation of data assets, and value distribution dominated by smart contracts possible. 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.

Previously, the DeSci sector experienced a wave of enthusiasm in the secondary market, which has now gradually cooled down. In the previous wave, it was a manifestation of anticipated finance, appearing in the form of Memecoins, but we cannot deny the DeSci sector because of this. On the contrary, we should conduct an in-depth analysis at this moment to understand the real value behind DeSci and its future impact on the shift in technological paradigms.

The core concept of DeSci includes the following key aspects:

1. Incentive Mechanism: Reshaping the Distribution of Research Value

DeSci has fundamentally changed the value distribution model in traditional scientific research by introducing a blockchain-based incentive system. Researchers can gain academic recognition and economic returns through token economics, NFT papers, or reputation systems, which not only incentivizes the widespread sharing of knowledge but also provides new avenues for the monetization of research outcomes.

2. Decentralization: Restructuring the Power Structure of Scientific Research

In the traditional research model, funding allocation and achievement evaluation are often controlled by a few centralized institutions, leading to uneven resource distribution and limited innovation. DeSci democratizes resource allocation through community-driven models such as DAO(, decentralizing power to the research community.

3. Lowering the threshold for scientific research: promoting the democratization of scientific research

DeSci significantly lowers the participation threshold for 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 equally access global research resources and contribute.

4. Data Transparency: Rebuilding the Academic Trust System

The traceability feature of blockchain technology provides a technical guarantee for the transparency and verifiability of research data. From experimental design to data collection, and then to the publication of results, every link can be recorded and publicly verified. This can effectively curb academic misconduct and enhance public trust in scientific research.

The essence of DeSci is a return to the nature of science------science should be a common wealth of all humanity, rather than the exclusive domain of a few institutions or elites. In the traditional research model, the creation and dissemination of knowledge are controlled by layers of intermediaries, causing science to gradually deviate from its original intention of being open and collaborative. DeSci aims to break these barriers through technological means, allowing science to return to its decentralized nature. It is not only a technological innovation but also a revolution in scientific philosophy.

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) The Essential Differences Between DeSci and Traditional Scientific Research Systems

1.2.1 Collaborative Mode: From Fragmented Confrontation to Organic Collaboration

The traditional research system presents a typical "triangular fragmentation" structure: funding institutions ### government/enterprise (, the scientist community, and publishers form a closed loop of interests, yet lack a value alignment mechanism.

• Funders often assess research output through short-term KPIs, forcing scientists to pursue "publishable results" rather than addressing substantive issues;

• To secure continuous funding, scientists have to invest a lot of energy into project applications and compliance processes, rather than in-depth research;

• Publishers monopolize academic dissemination channels, charging high subscription fees ), while the global scientific publishing market generates annual revenues exceeding $19 billion (, without providing reasonable compensation to knowledge producers.

This fragmentation leads to over 30% of global research funding being wasted each year, approximately $60 billion, on redundant research or experiments that cannot be replicated. DeSci reconstructs the tripartite relationship through a collaborative framework driven by smart contracts:

• Funders can pool funds through the DAO and set long-term goals like "anti-aging" ), with the community voting to decide resource allocation;

• Scientists receive token rewards for contributions of data, open-source code, or experimental replication, with economic returns directly linked to actual value creation;

• The role of publishers 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 Break to Closed Loop Acceleration

The traditional "valley of death" phenomenon in the transformation of industry-university-research essentially reflects the failure of the knowledge transfer system: in the chain of basic research ) papers ( → application development ) patents ### → commercial transformation ( products ), each stage is led by different entities and lacks an incentive mechanism for connection. For example, the National Institutes of Health ( NIH ) invests $45 billion annually, yet only 0.4% of basic research results enter the clinical trial phase; the core issue lies in: pharmaceutical companies lock experimental data to protect trade secrets, leading to repetitive trial and error (, with $2.6 billion spent on preclinical research per drug ); at the same time, venture capital tends to favor later-stage mature projects, making it difficult for early breakthrough research to obtain support.

DeSci aims to break the barriers of interest distribution in traditional scientific research by introducing blockchain and Web3 technologies, promoting more efficient research collaboration. Unlike the island nature of traditional models, DeSci enables deeper collaboration among funders, scientists, and publishers through decentralized mechanisms, addressing issues of funding, data sharing, and transparency of research outcomes. DeSci builds a transformation accelerator through technological-economic paradigm innovation:

• Technology IP Tokenization: For example, the Molecule platform converts drug development intellectual property into IP-NFTs, allowing investors to purchase rights in segments. Research shows that this method reduces the financing cycle for early-stage biopharmaceutical projects by 60%;

• Data liquidity: Platforms like Ocean Protocol establish data trading markets, allowing researchers to securely share data and gain revenue through privacy computing technology. Over 20PB of biomedical data has already been put on-chain.

• Community Incentive Mechanism: VitaDAO utilizes a "Research-Development-Commercialization" three-phase token distribution model, allowing basic researchers to continue earning 5%-15% in ongoing revenue through smart contracts after a drug is launched, creating a closed-loop incentive.

• Efficient Fund Allocation: Through DAO and tokenized economic models, DeSci provides transparent and efficient funding support, avoiding resource waste. For example, VitaDAO funds anti-aging research through DAO and supports 24 projects.

• Decentralized Publishing: DeSci changes the way research results are produced and disseminated, ensuring transparency and verifiability of results through blockchain, reducing publication costs, and diminishing the monopolistic influence of traditional publishers.

• Ownership of Research Achievements and Transparent Review: The immutability of blockchain ensures the ownership of research achievements, while smart contracts record the review process, enhancing review transparency and ensuring fairness and efficiency in research.

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

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

In traditional systems, the value of scientific research is monopolized by a few centralized nodes.

• Publisher Elsevier has maintained a gross margin of 37% for a long time, far exceeding technology giants like Apple )24%(;

• The processing fee for a single paper in the top journal "Nature" can be as high as $11,390, yet 97% of reviewers work for free;

• Pharmaceutical giants rely on patent barriers to reap huge 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 reconstructs allocation logic through programmable value streams:

• Contribution Quantification: Utilizing the on-chain reputation system ), such as the Karma score from DeSci Labs ###, to convert behaviors like paper citations, code submissions, and experimental reproductions into tradable credit assets.

• Dynamic allocation: Smart contracts automatically distribute profits. For example, the BioDAO project injects 30% of patent revenue into the community treasury, 45% is allocated to researchers based on contributions, and 25% rewards early investors.

• Long-tail activation: African scientists reduce research costs by 70% through LabDAO's shared laboratory equipment and receive global funding support through data contributions.

The difference between DeSci and traditional scientific research is not only an upgrade of technical tools but also a reconstruction of production relationships. When scientific breakthroughs are no longer constrained by institutional boundaries, geographical limitations, or power rent-seeking, humanity may enter a new era of "collective intelligence explosion." 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 problems that individual countries or companies cannot overcome in the next decade, such as Alzheimer's disease therapies or controllable nuclear fusion (. The ultimate goal of this transformation is to return science to its purest essence: evidence-based, open-sharing, and serving the welfare of all humanity.

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) 1.3 Market Size and Key Players

(# 1.3.1 Market Size

Currently, the market size of the DeSci field is approaching $1 billion. 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 attributed to the mature application of blockchain technology but also benefits from the pain point of the imbalanced allocation of global research funding: the traditional research market invests over $200 billion annually, but a significant amount of funding is wasted due to bureaucratic processes and the inefficient management of centralized institutions. The rise of DeSci is reconstructing this landscape: through tokenized incentives, decentralized governance, and open-source collaboration, its market size is expected to exceed $50 billion before 2030, becoming a vertical track in the Web3 field alongside finance and AI.

The potential of DeSci has attracted dual attention from both the crypto industry and academia. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has repeatedly emphasized the disruptive significance of DeSci for "open science"; leaders in crypto, including the founder of a trading platform, a co-founder of another platform, and a CEO of yet another platform, have endorsed it through investments and support. Additionally, top investors like the co-founder of Paradigm and a former CTO of a platform have viewed DeSci as a core direction for "next-generation research infrastructure." Leading VCs such as a16z, Polychain Capital, and Digital Currency Group are all making moves, with biopharmaceutical DAOs like VitaDAO) and decentralized data protocols like Ocean Protocol( becoming key targets for capital investment.

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1.3.2 Major Players

(## 1.3.2.1 Molecule

Molecule was established in 2021 as a decentralized protocol aimed at disrupting traditional biotechnology R&D models. The project is designed to create a brand new financing ecosystem for early biological research and innovatively bring biotechnology intellectual property )IP( on-chain, pioneering the concept of IP-NFT, and is known as "a certain platform in the field of biotechnology."

Based on IP-NFT, Molecule has built a market aimed at facilitating efficient connections between researchers and funders for translational research. On the Molecule Discovery platform, researchers can submit research proposals, while funders can evaluate the proposals and negotiate collaboration terms with the research teams. In this way, Molecule promotes the transformation of basic research into practical applications.