AI & DeSci — The Infrastructure Potential Behind the Narrative of Navigating Bull and Bear Markets

Author: Evan Lu, Waterdrip Capital, X: @Fisher256X

How Far Are We from Mass Adoption?

A week after Trump won the U.S. election, despite BTC rising over 20%, the launch of Meme coins once again sparked a frenzy; however, during the past six months of low periods, the market seemed to be dominated by the narrative that "the crypto industry lacks real-world support." At that time, the Depin industry was still under construction, and some of its subfields, like cloud computing, were still quite far from true mass adoption. Yet amidst the speculative frenzy of Memes, CZ and Vitalik personally stepped in to promote the DeSci concept, unexpectedly reigniting its popularity. It is undeniable that every new concept inevitably goes through a phase of speculation and hype; DeSci is no exception. However, after so many years of development in the blockchain industry that began with Bitcoin, it is time to consider how to build applications that benefit humanity in the real world.

AI & DeSci

At the beginning of last year, the AI revolution led by ChatGPT injected new narrative power into this bull market. "AI represents advanced productivity, while blockchain represents advanced redistribution and integration of production relations." This new paradigm consensus quickly sparked enthusiastic discussions within the community and became one of the new narratives on the eve of the bull market. Driven by this trend, projects like Bittensor and fetch.ai rapidly emerged as leaders in this concept.

Moreover, in September of this year, as the crypto market gradually regained vitality, meme coins surrounding the AI concept also experienced a launch frenzy due to $Goat. A small team or even an individual only needs to develop an AI Agent with specific functions—whether it's AI trading or AI virtual companionship—and then nurture their own community and fan base. If done well, this can take just one week; ultimately, they can "earn profits" by launching a meme coin of the same name.

The DeSci concept can even be traced back to the last bull market, but it was limited by the long cycle of "Science" in Crypto+Science, and thus it never gained much presence in the crypto industry. The real breakout began on November 8, when Binance Labs announced an investment in BIO Protocol, marking Binance Labs' first foray into the decentralized science (DeSci) field. Less than a week after this announcement, CZ attended the DeSci Day event held by Binance in Bangkok, where he discussed DeSci insights with Vitalik, expressing his hope to see 1,000 DeSci projects by next year. Since then, both Binance's official Twitter and CZ's posts have repeatedly mentioned DeSci. The passionate endorsements from CZ and Vitalik temporarily made the DeSci concept meme coins extremely popular; within just a few days, several hot coins emerged from the DeSci concept, such as $uro and $rif corresponding to single drugs released by BIO, as well as $SciHub, which is used for donations to the world's largest open-access paper platform, Sci-Hub. The total market capitalization of related concepts has already surpassed $800 million.

However, a good narrative is not only reflected in short-term popularity but also requires long-term infrastructure to realize true application scenarios. The most essential foundational support for AI—computing power resources—still remains in the development stage through Depin cloud computing for scheduling idle computing power, with limited large-scale adoption, and the cost, stability of the computing environment, and corresponding speed have yet to be effectively validated by the market.

The core technology behind DeSci—decentralized storage—has been proven since the development of the IPFS protocol, offering lower costs and higher security compared to traditional centralized storage solutions; moreover, current solutions are relatively mature. It can be said that the infrastructure for DeSci has been established, and now it just needs more recognition and adoption of the decentralized storage concept.

Tracing the DeSci Concept: Is Speculation Still Greater than Practicality?

I remember discussing with several projects quietly working in the DeSci space at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival in April this year, and they all told me without exception that this is a project that requires a good psychological preparation for "long-termism." At this stage, it can only be said that DeSci has just been introduced into users' sight, and we are still far from building a glorious Rome.

So what is DeSci? DeSci stands for Decentralized Science. It promotes global open access to research data through distributed storage technology, reducing the singular control of data by governments or institutions, and avoiding the risks of leakage, loss, and malicious tampering associated with centralized storage. This model not only makes scientific research activities open and transparent but also allows global researchers to freely share resources. Additionally, DeSci employs smart contracts and DAOs to improve the transparency and efficiency of research funding and helps scientists raise the necessary funds for their research. This fundamentally changes the traditional funding structure for scientific research and greatly enhances the efficiency of fund utilization.

In summary, the DeSci model achieves innovation in two areas: 1. Fundraising is realized through the launch of tokens, and the currently popular $rif and $uro have raised funds for the development of the two drugs behind them through meme coin launches. 2. Research data storage has shifted from centralized servers to decentralized and permanently non-lost blockchains.

"Decentralized Science (DeSci) has successfully introduced the liquidity of meme coins into universities and laboratories around the world, supporting real scientific research." The founder of BIO Protocol's reply to CZ on X also reveals the essence of DeSci: leveraging the speculative psychology of the crypto market to promote and accelerate the monetization of value in the research field and more real-world applications.

BIO Protocol Business Model, Source: https://docs.bio.xyz/bio

Currently, the popularity of the DeSci concept is mainly supported by the wealth effect driven by memes. Due to the brief massive exposure, the industry's development has been swept up by market sentiment. However, the research field requires continuous and substantial funding while facing high risks and high failure rates, which stands in stark contrast to the short-term speculation and rapid liquidity exhaustion of memes.

Therefore, in the short term, this will lead to a large number of speculators entering this space, attempting to use it as a gimmick to launch projects for financing, with the goal of "financing equals profit," rather than genuinely investing in scientific research. Thus, after experiencing a brief period of popularity, DeSci will enter a phase of distinguishing the genuine from the false and gradually cultivate users' understanding of DeSci in the educational market, after which it may truly achieve the goal of "utilizing crypto finance to drive the monetization of research results."

Currently, the demand for data storage and on-chain proof behind DeSci is extremely significant. If DeSci can leverage the popularity of memes to break boundaries and effectively establish a mature business model, then decentralized storage will become the infrastructure of the DeSci field, and this stable and substantial demand will greatly promote the development of the decentralized storage ecosystem.

The Development of Decentralized Storage Matures; The Infrastructure Behind DeSci Cannot Be Underestimated

Decentralized storage has gone through multiple development stages from the early Storj to Filecoin, Arweave, and the underlying IPFS protocol. An analysis in May 2023 pointed out that decentralized storage is on average about 78% cheaper than centralized storage, with this difference reaching up to 121 times in enterprise-level data storage. Additionally, decentralized storage has significant advantages in data security, privacy, and reliability. However, despite some Web2 clients beginning to adopt decentralized storage solutions like Filecoin and Arweave, centralized storage with a more intuitive user experience and mature product systems still dominates the market. The limitations of Filecoin in programmability and permanent data storage, as well as the relatively high costs associated with Arweave's "permanent storage," remain unresolved pain points in the industry.

Comparison of Centralized Storage and Decentralized Storage, Source: Binance Research

In April of last year, Binance announced the launch of BNB Greenfield, marking a new height for decentralized storage. The biggest feature of Greenfield is to provide decentralized storage infrastructure for the entire BNB Chain ecosystem, enabling users and decentralized applications (DApps) to create, store, and exchange fully owned data. Through a native cross-chain bridge with BSC, users can freely transfer BNB between BSC and Greenfield, facilitating interaction with DApps built on Greenfield.

Compared to IPFS and Arweave, BNB Greenfield has advantages in deep integration with BNB Chain, cross-chain support, the combination of decentralized storage and computing capabilities, as well as low cost and high efficiency. This makes Greenfield more suitable for decentralized finance (DeFi), smart contracts, and Web3 application scenarios, with stronger scalability and ecological synergy. Looking to the future, GreenField can be used in the following scenarios, including but not limited to:

Website Hosting: Users can quickly deploy and host websites via API, simplifying registration and payment processes.

Personal Cloud Storage: Create secure personal cloud storage using private keys, easily upload and download encrypted files.

Blockchain Data Storage: Store BNB Smart Chain and other ecological data, reducing latency and improving availability.

Content Publishing: Creators store their works and mirror them to the BNB Smart Chain, allowing buyers to access them after the transaction is completed.

Social Media: Social media influencers can fully control their content data, publishing and profiting through decentralized platforms.

Personal Data Market: Provide decentralized data storage and management solutions to ensure personal data security.

At the same time, the development of GreenField also relies on the support of its ecological projects. This year, the BNB ecosystem officially launched a community voting activity for favorite projects, dividing the ecosystem into five categories. In the Infra category, 4EVERLAND and BAS, as the native infrastructure of Greenfield, are very important components.

BNB Ecosystem Catalyst Awards Candidates, Source: Binance Square

4EVERLAND

4EVERLAND is the largest decentralized storage provider in the Greenfield ecosystem. As an officially certified storage provider (SP) and validator, 4EVERLAND provides robust storage resources on Greenfield while supporting the BNB Chain and opBNB networks, dedicated to building an efficient decentralized storage network. Based on GreenField, 4EVERLAND integrates the features and advantages of IPFS and Arweave to provide a better-integrated storage network solution, offering a more user-friendly experience and reducing the difficulty of using decentralized storage.

Its key advantages include:

• Dual Role of Storage and Validation: As a storage provider (SP) and validator for Greenfield, 4EVERLAND not only provides storage solutions for users but also participates in the Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism to ensure the security of the blockchain.
• Multi-Chain Support and Compatibility: In addition to Greenfield, 4EVERLAND also supports BNB Chain and opBNB.
• Combination of Decentralized Storage and Computing Resources: While providing storage services, 4EVERLAND utilizes its 4Ever Node to offer immediate access and computing for stored data using idle hardware, achieving more efficient data usage scenarios.
• Flexible Storage Solutions: 4EVERLAND provides hybrid solutions suitable for hot and cold storage, combining IPFS + Arweave/Greenfield storage modes to meet different storage needs and remain compatible with Web2.
• Decentralized AI Services: Through AI RPC (API standard), 4EVERLAND offers aggregation solutions for over 100 models, providing users with efficient AI model invocation services.
• 4EVERLAND also provides DWeb hosting services, which play an important role in the Greenfield ecosystem, offering developers one-click deployment functionality, allowing the dApp frontend to be quickly deployed to Greenfield storage, and facilitating the future RAAS (Rollup as a Service) that BNB ecosystem aims to achieve.

Currently, 4EVERLAND has over 3 million registered users, more than 100,000 daily active users, and has stored 2000 TB on IPFS (third in the IPFS ecosystem), 20 TB on Arweave (third in the Arweave ecosystem), and has over 30k daily interactions on Greenfield (first in the Greenfield ecosystem). In terms of financing, it has received funding from BNBChain, Polygon, Optimism, IPFS, Arweave, and ICP, along with support from several well-known investment institutions.

Recently, 4EVERLAND has collaborated with multiple DeSci projects to jointly promote the decentralized storage of scientific literature. Some data in DeSci that is not subject to modification is suitable for permanent storage on Arweave, while data that is constantly being updated is suitable for IPFS and GreenField. 4EVERLAND has established a decentralized storage solution for DeSci by combining IPFS, Arweave, and Greenfield, creating cold backup data on Arweave and hot data access on GreenField.

BAS

The BNB Attestation Service (BAS), as the underlying data protocol standard for BNB, aims to generate certified verification information to bring tens of millions of trusted private data into the Web3 ecosystem, particularly providing data support for AI. The characteristics of BAS include:

• Decentralized Verification Service: By bringing Web2 and Web3 data on-chain, it provides cross-platform verification services, supporting information from exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, as well as data from social platforms like X and TikTok. Moreover, research data verification services involved in DeSci can also directly use BAS for verification and put the results on-chain.
• User Sovereignty and Data Privacy: Users can actively upload data through dApp projects using datasets created by BAS and defined data format standards; this reduces the need for third parties to annotate data, achieving proactive classification and standardization of data, and returning the sovereignty of handling their own data to users.
• AI Training and Dataset Services: Through decentralized data verification, BAS can directly provide the most reliable and usable data for AI training and dataset needs.
• Ecosystem Cooperation and Applications: BAS has established connections with over 3,000 independent certifiers, more than 100 data resource providers, and over 100 ecosystem partners, supporting over 30 million certifications.

For Greenfield, the introduction of BAS provides data verification and management capabilities, further enhancing the platform's security, transparency, and user control, making Greenfield a more robust decentralized storage solution. By integrating with BAS, Greenfield can ensure data verification and compliance while providing efficient data management and permission control functions.

Attempts at Sustainable Development in the Crypto Industry

GreenField is an extremely important strategic layout personally endorsed by Binance and even CZ himself. Since its launch, it has represented a significant ecological innovation within the BNB ecosystem. Unlike opBNB and BNB Chain, which directly face C-end users as "frontline forces," GreenField will work quietly behind the scenes, and its high performance and interoperability will be more conducive to the development of new narratives in the industry.

If the business model of DeSci is validated, coupled with Binance's traffic support, it will undoubtedly greatly promote the prosperity of the BNB ecosystem, and GreenField will achieve large-scale adoption. Thus, this article affirms the value investment potential of decentralized storage. From a more macro perspective, what truly concerns the countless crypto users and practitioners is whether the development of the crypto industry can remain evergreen and achieve sustainable development.

CZ, Binance officials, and Vitalik have recently emphasized the importance of DeSci and have genuinely invested real money to support this field. Even the official Binance account has published research reports on DeSci to legitimize it. This is undoubtedly a significant innovative attempt, rather than merely speculating on a concept. Behind the industry's dynamics is the vision that blockchain finance can truly serve the market, realize value landing, and contribute to society through blockchain technology.