DeSci (Decentralized Science) Sparks Meme Craze

About a year or two ago, a friend in the industry specifically talked to me about the topic of DeSci.

DeSci is short for Decentralized Science.

At that time, I had heard this term and could roughly guess its meaning from the literal translation.

Back then, DeSci was not popular; what was more popular was DePIN, especially a number of DePIN projects combined with GPU computing power—like the early Filecoin that utilized decentralized, fragmented GPU computing power.

However, I held a very cautious attitude towards these so-called DePIN projects because I felt that they would likely end up with a fate similar to Filecoin—essentially not utilizing idle fragmented computing power, but rather turning into a competition among giant computing centers, completely deviating from the original intention of the project.

Influenced by such projects, I then thought that the so-called "DeSci" was probably trying to do something similar, gathering scattered researchers around the world to conduct research through token incentives.

I believed that this way of doing research might not be easy to popularize on a large scale, and it might not be a true application of cryptographic technology.

Although the open-source code community has developed through such collaboration, I was uncertain whether research could develop in this way.

So at that time, I expressed a very cautious view on DeSci to my friend.

Unexpectedly, in recent days, the concept of DeSci suddenly became popular in the community, especially with a DeSci project called Bio Protocol leading the charge in biotechnology.

There is a good article on this project by Deep Tide, and I have attached the reference link at the end of the article.

This project mainly funds some initiatives in the biotechnology field, and its funding method is primarily conducted through a DAO, initiating a DAO for each direction/project.

Currently, the official website (https://app.bio.xyz/genesis) shows that 8 DAOs have already been established. Each of these 8 DAOs has issued its own token.

Taking one of them, VitaDAO, as an example, from the official website of this DAO (https://www.vitadao.com/), we can see that its funding direction is longevity technology.

Researchers can apply for funding for their research projects on the official website. After review, the holders of this DAO's tokens vote on whether to provide funding for the project.

This approach has a clear distinction from what I previously understood about DeSci:

This method uses cryptographic technology/cryptographic assets more in the areas of project review and funding, rather than conducting research in the so-called decentralized manner that I previously understood.

I think this approach is still worth trying. If DeSci evolves in this direction, it is worth further tracking and observing.

In fact, I strongly support exploring similar methods in more fields, such as funding the development of language models, AI agents, and so on, which I have shared before.

However, the project tokens, including VitaDAO, currently do not have much economic empowerment, mainly serving governance functions. So whether these DAO tokens are worth investing in is another matter.

Additionally, there has been an interesting little episode in this field over the past few days: a website called Pump.Science has appeared with tokens related to biotechnology.

Many people say these tokens are purely meme coins, but they are actually somewhat different.

Pure meme coins rely solely on artificial narratives and emotions, but the tokens on Pump.Science are currently linked to the progress of research projects. The projects represented by the tokens update their research progress periodically.

This provides slightly more data support than pure meme coins.

Although whether this data support is real, credible, and meaningful remains to be seen, at least it has a bit of "rationality" and is not purely gambling.

Reference link:

https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_21702.html