Bull markets are not short of opportunities. Participating in early-stage emerging projects always seems to double capital in a short period of time. Reports of coins increasing by hundreds or thousands of times are constantly emerging, and the crypto community greedily seeks the next password.

In the face of the crowded meme and AI concepts, the increase seems to be just a number, and doubling is no longer enough to stir up waves in the crypto community. However, among the rising tokens, ResearchCoin (RSC) has attracted market attention, with its price breaking previous highs multiple times in the past month.

In addition to the increase, it is worth noting the track to which RSC belongs—DeSci (Decentralized Science), which is an action to use Web3 (including NFT, smart contracts, DAO) to establish public infrastructure for fair and just funding, creation, review, storage, and dissemination of scientific knowledge. DeSci encourages scientists to openly share research results and receive recognition, while allowing anyone easy access to and contribution of research results.

In the New Year's outlook at the end of last year, many VCs publicly expressed their optimism about the DeSci track. For example, Messari stated in an investment forecast article that they are shifting their focus to several key non-financial sectors in the crypto field, among which DeSci revolves around key solutions far beyond the financial sector, thus not being driven by rampant speculation.

Matti, co-founder of Zee Prime Capital, stated in an interview with BlockBeats that DeSci is addressing real-world problems and has practicality that most cryptocurrencies do not have, making it more like a cryptocurrency of cryptocurrencies.

However, for current cryptocurrencies, DeSci's popularity is not high and it still belongs to a very new concept.

Compared to the Chinese community, DeSci has more discussions in the English community. At the end of last year, Berlin hosted a DeSci conference, where industry OGs such as Matti, co-founder of Zee Prime Capital, Molecule CEO Tyler Golato, and co-founder Paul Kohlhaas participated and shared their research and understanding of DeSci.

In the Chinese community, perhaps it was the former CEO CZ of Binance who sparked a small wave of enthusiasm for DeSci on social media platforms. CZ mentioned that he has been reading about biotechnology and thinking about how to use encryption technology to accelerate research funding there. It is well known that the crypto community has long been involved in "longevity" research, and DeSci perfectly meets the research needs in this field.

According to WIKI inclusion data, there are currently hundreds of projects in the DeSci track. However, according to Messari's report data, 50% of DeSci projects were established in the past year. From the chart, it can be seen that in the current DeSci ecosystem, DAO is the most prosperous, while others such as NFT-related composite concepts are still in a relatively early stage.

DAO Solves DeSci's Financing Difficulties

DAO can be said to be the basic form of the DeSci concept, and currently, DAO is the most prosperous in the entire DeSci ecosystem. Currently, the biggest and most pressing issue for DeSci is financing difficulties. In addition to DAO, it can be seen that the sector focused on decentralized financing also accounts for a large part of the entire track, and the main purpose of DAO's existence is to solve the financing difficulties.

Traditional scientific research seeks research funding and resources through centralized means such as the National Natural Science Foundation, but this leads to a lot of problems in the funding application process, and the entire process of applying for funding is lengthy and inefficient. Moreover, due to the deterioration of the overall environment, such as economic downturn and environmental reasons, overall research funding is gradually decreasing, and the problem of research funding is becoming increasingly serious.

Interconnected Desci Ecosystem

In the Desci ecosystem, the close connection of projects may be a good start. Raising funds in the form of DAO seems to be a good choice, and different DAOs will also invest in each other.

For example, after receiving investment from Seed Club Ventures, Molecule invested in the open-source drug development organization LabDAO. Subsequently, Molecule also received a $1 million investment from Sora Ventures. To promote innovation in the field of biomedical research, Molecule will specifically provide funding to Asian researchers, planning to provide $50,000 to deserving scientific teams or individuals.

As a fundraising platform for biotechnology research built on Ethereum, Molecule has two main systems: Molecule Discovery and Molecule Finance. Molecule uses a combination of smart contracts and legal contracts to form Intellectual Property NFTs (IP-NFTs), which allow anyone to share ownership of research projects and their future results, such as intellectual property, royalties, and data.

Molecule's CEO and co-founder Tyler Golato and co-founder Paul Kohlhaas also created Bio.xyz and VitaDAO.

Bio.xyz, as a biotechnology DAO accelerator and DeSci meta-governance layer, aims to enable DeSci DAO to use IP-NFTs to fund, manage, and develop the intellectual property of universities, companies, and researchers worldwide. In addition, Bio.xyz also provides DeSci DAO with a launchpad, resources, guidance, shared networks, and a set of legal and smart contracts.

The fundraising targets of Molecule and bio.xyz are similar to VitaDAO, a decentralized scientific organization. Combining multiple projects makes it easier to apply for scientific research grants and link intellectual property with cryptocurrencies.

DAO Focuses on Real-World Issues

According to OP Research's study, most of the current DeSci projects tend to focus on the biological track, which may be due to the large number of research directions in the biological field itself and the increased public attention to biological science due to the pandemic.

VitaDAO is a leader in the research and development of longevity. As the world's first biotechnology DAO, VitaDAO's main goal is to advance longevity research, extending human lifespan and healthspan. Its native token VITA has seen a 48% increase in the past 30 days, with a market value of $83.29 million. VITA holders participate in VitaDAO's decision-making process, including project funding selection, fund management, and governance activities.

Similarly, the AxonDAO Governance Token (AXGT) also focuses on biotechnology. It redefines the interaction between individuals and their health data using the power of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence. The project is based on the use of pre-cognitive algorithms, drawing on rich biometric technology, genomic data, and other key health indicators, not only for monitoring but also for predicting health outcomes.

DeSci can use AxonDAO to simplify the collection, storage, and verification of clinical data through blockchain technology, providing a solution. This approach ensures secure and transparent data processing, while also establishing universal standards for personal health and healthcare information, promoting easier access and better control of personal data.

In the field of biotechnology, there is also a popular topic: hair loss. HairDAO is a decentralized organization dedicated to treating hair loss, using an open-source investment and operational model. Through HairDAO, patients and researchers collaborate to develop revolutionary new treatments for hair loss. Users' treatment experiences are recorded in the HairDAO application and earn HAIR tokens as rewards.

HairDAO features rich reward mechanisms, cultural characteristics, and meme qualities. According to an article by Matti, co-founder of Zee Prime Capital, titled "Hair is Money," HairDAO's ultimate state is a fully vertically integrated pharmaceutical business, including drug manufacturing and distribution. HairDAO must transition from a chaotic Discord group of only a thousand people to a reliable enterprise that can accommodate tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people (for data collection) and outsource operations in the physical world (for approval, patents, manufacturing, distribution, etc.).

DeSci Solves the Peer Review and Approval Dilemma

On the basis of funding, the second major challenge faced by DeSci is the pain point of peer review in publishing and paper literature review. In general, for a research project, the funding cycle often starts with writing a proposal at the beginning of the year and ends with project completion and review at the end of the year, with a lot of time spent on application procedures and assessment processes.

During the assessment and approval process, research projects lack a comprehensive and efficient approval mechanism. Often, by the time a project applies for research funding, progress is already more than halfway, making it difficult to allocate research funding to where it is truly needed. In addition, in the current review of research funding, the publication of journal articles and patents is an important reference point for reviewing research funding. Based on this, the publication of journal articles and patents has become a necessity, and even some research journals openly form an industry chain. This single and unreasonable review mechanism has led to the gradual commercialization of journal articles, deviating from the original intention of research.

As mentioned earlier, ResearchCoin (RSC) decentralizes the authority of review in a decentralized manner, aiming to change the traditional journal publishing model.

By creating a "Hub" system as an alternative to traditional journals, ResearchCoin allows scientists or scholars to openly publish and discuss scientific or academic content in these hubs, bypassing the traditional review process, accelerating the dissemination of information, and conducting peer review after publication. As a crypto research platform, users earn ResearchCoin (RSC) by publishing content on ResearchHub, with the amount of RSC received proportional to the value the community assigns to the content.

In addition, users can set RSC bounties for peer review, paper abstracts, or new methods in the laboratory. They can also crowdfund cryptocurrency for research by "pre-registering" projects in forum posts before the research work begins. According to ResearchHub, activities on the platform are constantly growing over time, with peer review activities being the most active and promising.

ResearchCoin was co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and completed a $5 million Series A financing on June 15 last year. According to coingecko data, at the time of writing, the price of RSC has risen to $0.8328, with a 24-hour increase of 10.3%.

Although most tokens in the DeSci field have seen good increases, perhaps due to the low popularity of this concept, in the coingecko statistics of DeSci market value rankings, some of the leading projects are marked with other labels such as DePIN and RWA.

For example, OriginTrail, ranked 201st in total market value in the crypto market, is the top project in this track, and its official Twitter tag only shows AI, DePIN, and RWA. According to its official website, life sciences and healthcare are its key research directions. The 6th-ranked project in this track, Dynex, does not directly show DeSci-related content on its official website and Twitter. As a neural morphic quantum computing cloud, Dynex only mentions DeSci-related use cases in its documentation, including pharmaceuticals, automotive, aerospace, and other areas.

As an emerging concept, the DeSci track may become increasingly popular, just like some very small projects that are gaining more and more attention.

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