Author: Zuo Ye
The black box of large models is maddening, while blockchain hopes to bring about a transparent white box in scientific research.
In 1943, the master of quantum states, Schrödinger, gave a challenging lecture in Dublin, demonstrating the relationship between atoms, life, and cells from the perspective of statistical physics. At that time, across the ocean, a 15-year-old Watson was already a freshman at the University of Chicago.
After reading Schrödinger's lecture, Watson confirmed that genetics would be his lifelong ambition, which later became the basis for his book "What is Life."
Ten years later, when Watson, who had already obtained his PhD, proposed the double helix structure of DNA, the 25-year-old had already locked in the Nobel Prize ahead of time.
Grafting, Cloning to Gene Editing
In front of my house, there are two trees, one is a jujube tree, and the other is also a jujube tree.
Anyone who has been through middle school knows that genes are fragments of information in DNA, like the "function body" in code, representing the most basic functional implementation, while DNA is like an instance module, and RNA functions like routing and communication, transmitting genetic information to specific targets.
Watson discovered the structure of DNA, but humanity did not know how to utilize it. It's like knowing about Schrödinger's cat, but while the cat is easy to find, quantum communication would take many more years to develop.
At least Watson was luckier than Schrödinger. In 2012, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna discovered that CRISPR sequences and Cas proteins could be combined to artificially cut specific sequences and insert desired fragments of information, ultimately utilizing the body's repair mechanisms to complete the grafting process unknowingly.
It really resembles horticultural pruning, where visible branches connect, and despite not understanding the biological mechanisms, one can still discern the matching relationships between different plants—experimentation is all that is needed.
Experiments can continue, and cloning is similar; cell nuclei and cytoplasm can also be separated and "grafted." Through continuous experimentation, cloning can achieve the marvelous effects of isomers, just as described in "What is Life."
Gene editing is not mysterious; it is a further step from cloning, a further miniaturization in size, just like life from the atomic perspective is merely the irreversible process of thermal motion leading to ultimate coldness, akin to time, which may stretch or compress but is forever irreversible.
Humans can graft fruit trees, and humans can clone animals, so can humans edit humans?
In 2018, the mad scientist He Jiankui became either Eve or the serpent, performing gene editing on a pair of embryos with parents suffering from AIDS, thus opening Pandora's box. Cloned animals can be humanely destroyed, but is a genetically edited human still human?
Image caption: The working principle of CRISPR-Cas9, image source: @zuoyeweb3
However, the deep dive into the genetic level presents a fatal temptation for certain populations—longevity. Finding the gene fragments that influence lifespan, like a hacker for General Jin, modifying its value from 100 to ♾️, even adding just a 0 would be enough.
In 2023, Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Paradigm, decided to leave the crypto industry to establish a biological research company called Nudge. Coincidentally, Fred is also a co-founder of Coinbase, which transitioned into crypto VC after the company went public in 2017.
Also in 2017, Paul Kohlhaas joined Consensys as the BD director but left to start his own venture a year later. Why not do something more interesting with blockchain?
For example, conducting scientific research. In 2018, Molecule was established, one of the early explorations of the intersection between blockchain and scientific research, especially in biological studies. Meanwhile, DeepMind, the parent company of Alpha Go, had already released its life science research model, AlphaFold, in 2016, showcasing its power in protein structure observation.
In 2020, AlphaFold2 successfully solved the protein folding problem, and the 25-year-old Watson had reserved his Nobel Prize; this time, the 4-year-old AlphaFold2 was also set to claim 50% of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024.
Fred's career change in 2023 wasn't even early; as early as 2020, another co-founder of Coinbase, Armstrong, had initiated the establishment of ResearchHub to deconstruct the institutional research process of universities—papers—funding, introducing incentive mechanisms to allow universities to lead in titles, publishers to profit, and to alleviate the burden of funding applications from scholars.
Especially since scholars bear the costs of submitting papers to publishers, but the reviewers selected by publishers often work for free, with only the publishers profiting from the difference.
All elements are in place; AI, scientific research, and papers are converging towards life sciences. The 21st century is indeed the century of biology.
The Crypto Circle Offers Longevity, First Seek the Elixir of Life
Decentralized science (DeSci) is the pharmaceutical research of life sciences.
DeSci is a crypto version of the AI4Sci movement, but it is highly focused on AI, life sciences, and new drug development. Perhaps it has taken a "detour" through meme culture; remember Paul Kohlhaas's Molecule? In 2022, it even received investment from Balaji—no one can resist the temptation of longevity.
Further, in 2022, Paul Kohlhaas established Bio Protocol, beginning to develop products that could help crypto moguls live longer, with several sub-DAOs focusing on the scientific mysteries of life from male health to all aspects of life.
In 2024, the "reborn" CZ and Vitalik appeared together at the Bangkok DeSci Day, where the younger Vitalik recommended the supplement VD001 from Vita DAO under Bio Protocol to the older CZ.
Then, Bio successfully received investment from CZ's YZi, and the token smoothly made its way to Binance. Paul Kohlhaas is quite adept at keeping up with the times, even creating a Pump Science that mimics PumpFun—does combining memes with scientific research have potential?
However, after Bio surged, there was dissatisfaction with the delivery of results. In traditional scientific research, developing a new drug can easily exceed $1 billion and take years or even decades, while Bio's secondary market can't wait five minutes; taking the money without delivering is the original sin of truly engaging in scientific research.
The story doesn't end here, as the wave of Agents has arrived. AI Agents genuinely have the potential to change the efficiency of scientific research. Interestingly, ResearchHub received a $2 million investment in February 2025, and DeSci's Agent publications are now being reviewed.
In August 2025, Bio Protocol released its V2 plan, creating a new Launchpad, BioXP points program, and BioAgents, all built on ElizaOS, once again keeping pace with the times.
In just 7 days, over 100 million BIO tokens were staked, but on August 7 alone, 80 million tokens flooded in, indicating some data issues. Besides that, the economics designed in the V2 plan are more reasonable.
Small market caps avoid sell pressure and encourage continuous project sponsorship.
Image caption: $BIO staking data, image source: @cl2pp
However, the progress represented by Bio Protocol in DeSci is slower than that of AI4Sci. AlphaFold has already opened its database in 2021, having published 200 million protein structures to date, covering known species.
Feeling the lag in progress, Bio Protocol has been hoping for the FDA to publish or integrate the data accumulated by large pharmaceutical companies to accelerate open scientific research.
Additionally, Bio V2 is expected to promote the launch of several new drugs in the UAE, significantly shortening traditional research and development processes, while the relaxed human trial restrictions in the Middle East will also speed up life science research. However, whether He Jiankui or Watson will lead this remains uncertain.
Conclusion
The performance of GPT-5 is disappointing, but in niche fields like medicine and scientific research, we can still await the blooming of Scaling Law. The data potential in these high-value areas has yet to be fully tapped, and once progress is made, it could bring a tremendous enhancement to human cognition.
In the field of life sciences, Silicon Valley's Colossal is advancing its plan to resurrect ancient organisms, also using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, such as the "mammoth mouse" created by combining mammoths and mice, and the pure white giant dire wolf bred from ancient giant wolves.
Perhaps one day, humanity will evolve, and perhaps one day, humanity will perish.
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