Introduction

Decentralized Science (DeSci) is becoming a hot topic in the global scientific research community. Traditional research models have long been constrained by issues such as uneven funding distribution, data silos, and publication barriers, leading to slow research progress and limited innovation incentives. DeSci, through technologies like blockchain, smart contracts, and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), aims to reshape the research ecosystem to make it more open, efficient, and fair.

In recent years, DeSci has made significant progress in areas such as pharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence, and open-source data platforms. For example, Molecule DAO utilizes the IP-NFT (Intellectual Property Non-Fungible Token) model, enabling researchers to raise funds directly from global investors, breaking the limitations of traditional research funding processes.

Nevertheless, DeSci still faces numerous challenges, such as data privacy protection, intellectual property rights, regulatory compliance, and the feasibility of decentralized governance. However, the paradigm shift brought by DeSci is gaining increasing support, especially in research fields that traditional models struggle to cover.

This article will explore DeSci’s basic concepts, core technologies, application cases, challenges, and future development trends to help readers fully understand the prospects of this emerging field.

The Origin of DeSci

The Dilemmas of the Traditional Research System

Imbalanced Funding Distribution

Elite institutions, government grants, and private capital have long monopolized the traditional research system’s funding distribution. According to a report from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), scientists spend 80% of their research time applying for grants, yet the success rate is less than 20%. This high threshold for funding applications means that only a few top institutions receive financial support, while innovative small labs and emerging researchers are often marginalized.

Source: pharmafeatures

Meanwhile, large pharmaceutical companies control funding flows, resulting in a 70% funding gap for rare disease research. This unfair distribution of funds stifles diversity in the research ecosystem and severely impacts innovation.

Data Silos and Academic Monopolies

Research data and results in the traditional system are managed in closed environments, with particularly severe academic publishing monopolies. Leading journals like Nature and The Lancet charge over $11,000 per article, making many outstanding research results inaccessible to global researchers.

Additionally, these journals are often controlled by a handful of publishing companies, further exacerbating the inequality in disseminating academic resources.

Misaligned Incentive Mechanisms

In the traditional research system, researchers are often pressured to pursue high-impact publications rather than focus on long-term innovative value. Academic evaluation systems typically emphasize the “h-index” (a combined metric of the number of publications and citations).

Source: wiki

This leads researchers to concentrate on short-term goals while neglecting fundamental research and exploration. This phenomenon, known as “publish or perish,” weakens the depth and continuity of research, leaving many highly innovative projects without adequate support.

@# The Breakthrough Path of Blockchain Technology

Decentralized Storage and Data Ownership

lockchain technology offers solutions for permanent storage and data ownership verification. Arweave’s permanent storage ensures experimental data is immutable, while IPFS enables distributed sharing. This means researchers can upload their data to decentralized storage platforms, ensuring transparency and openness.

Source: linktree

Furthermore, GenomesDAO uses Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology to protect genomic data privacy, allowing users to control data access through tokens. This not only ensures data privacy but also provides incentives for data contributors.

DAO Governance and Smart Contracts

DeSci utilizes DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and smart contracts to achieve transparent allocation and management of research funds.

Source: Official

For example, VitaDAO is a DAO focused on longevity and biomedical research funding. It pools global research resources and funds through on-chain governance, tokenizing community members’ decision-making, and ensures research data’s transparency and traceability through blockchain technology. This breaks the limitations of traditional research funding allocation, accelerating longevity science development. VitaDAO allocated $4.1 million to support anti-aging research through on-chain voting, while MoleculeDAO tokenized drug patents as IP-NFTs, allowing investors to share in commercialization profits. The automation of smart contracts reduces management costs and improves funding efficiency.

Token Economy Sharing

Source: Official

This project aims to break traditional academic exchange barriers through blockchain technology and crypto incentives, allowing researchers to share, evaluate, and improve research results without intermediaries. It uses token incentives to attract global scholars to contribute high-quality academic content, accelerating the spread and innovation of scientific knowledge. ResearchHub rewards contributors with RSC tokens, providing profit-sharing for peer review.

These tokens not only drive community participation but also improve the liquidity and transparency of research funds.

Key Milestones in DeSci’s Development

• 2021: The first scientific NFT sold for 13 ETH, marking the practical debut of the DeSci concept.
• 2024: Pfizer strategically invested in VitaDAO, marking the first time a traditional pharmaceutical giant embraced DeSci.
• 2025: Binance Labs funded BIOProtocol, driving a 264% daily surge in DeSci token market value.

Technical Architecture and Economic Models

The Four Pillars of Blockchain Technology

Consensus Mechanism: DeSci adopts blockchain consensus mechanisms, most commonly Proof of Stake (PoS). For example, VitaDAO’s token holders can vote on funding proposals, ensuring fair and transparent fund allocation. This consensus mechanism removes traditional bureaucratic barriers, making decision-making more democratic.

Distributed Storage: Decentralized storage enables long-term preservation and sharing of research data. Arweave and IPFS are two widely adopted solutions.

Source: Capital

Arweave ensures permanent data storage, reducing the risk of data loss, while IPFS supports distributed network storage, preventing single-point failures. This makes DeSci data more secure and accessible.

Smart Contracts: DeSci smart contracts automate fund distribution, experiment supervision, and research results certification. These contracts are executed based on preset rules, reducing manual intervention and improving efficiency.

Source: Official

For example, ValleyDAO uses smart contracts to manage synthetic biology projects, releasing funds according to project milestones to prevent misuse.

Cryptographic Algorithms: Cryptographic algorithms safeguard data privacy. GenomesDAO, for instance, uses Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology to protect genomic data, enabling data sharing without compromising privacy. This encourages collaborative research without exposing sensitive information.

Token Economy Innovation

The DeSci token economy revolves around governance tokens, utility tokens, and meme tokens, each contributing to funding liquidity and community engagement.

Governance Tokens

DeSci’s governance tokens provide participants with voting rights, ensuring all stakeholders have a say in research funding decisions. For example, VitaDAO’s VITA tokens empower holders to vote on funding proposals, ensuring fair and transparent fund allocation. This governance model encourages broad community participation, breaking the monopoly of funding distribution in traditional research fields.

Utility Tokens

Utility tokens play a crucial role in DeSci by incentivizing research contributors and granting data access permissions.

Source: Official

For instance, LAKE tokens in DataLakeChain act as access credentials, allowing researchers to authorize data access while ensuring privacy and promoting data circulation.

Meme Tokens

Meme tokens, though unconventional, have proven to be surprisingly effective in DeSci’s economy. Leveraging community-driven hype and viral marketing, meme tokens can rapidly attract attention and funding for early-stage projects. Examples include RIF and URO tokens, which were created to raise funds for longevity research initiatives. While meme tokens often carry speculative risk, they serve as a powerful tool for generating short-term liquidity and raising public awareness. Analysts caution that projects must strike a balance between short-term speculation and long-term scientific value to avoid repeating the mistakes seen during past crypto bubbles.

Market Landscape and Case Studies

Competitive Landscape of Leading Projects

According to CoinGecko’s 2025 data, the top three projects in the DeSci sector by market cap are:

Source: Official

Hippocrat (HPO, $109 million): Focused on AI-powered medical consulting, Hippocrat’s algorithms are trained on on-chain data, achieving higher accuracy than traditional diagnostic tools. The project aims to provide personalized medical advice globally.

Source: official website

VitaDAO (VITA, $68.75 million): A leader in longevity research, VitaDAO funds projects related to telomere extension and senescent cell clearance therapies. As a flagship DeSci project, it has attracted traditional biotech investors and successfully accelerated funding and resource integration for longevity research.

Source: official website

ResearchCoin (RSC, $45.6 million): Known as the ‘GitHub of Science,’ ResearchCoin incentivizes open-source collaboration through token rewards. The platform fosters scientific collaboration and becomes a key hub for decentralized academic publishing.

Integration with traditional institutions

DeSci is gaining traction among emerging blockchain projects and drawing increasing interest from traditional institutions.

Source: Reuters

Traditional scientific research and pharmaceutical parties such as Pfizer and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) participate in the DeSci project through investment and cooperation, hoping to use blockchain technology to improve R&D efficiency and promote the commercialization of innovative drugs.

Pfizer: The pharmaceutical giant invested in VitaDAO to accelerate anti-aging drug development. Pfizer’s Global Head of R&D stated, “The decentralized model bypasses traditional venture capital processes, enabling direct access to cutting-edge technologies.” Pfizer’s involvement has provided valuable funding and industry influence, supporting VitaDAO’s growth.

Source: official website

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): MIT partnered with MoleculeDAO to tokenize lab results, attracting community funding to support translational research. This partnership reflects a growing recognition of DeSci among established academic institutions, signaling a potential shift towards incorporating decentralized research models.

Risks and Controversies

Despite rapid progress, DeSci faces significant risks and controversies:

Market Volatility: In early 2025, DeSci tokens saw a 90% price drop, exposing speculative bubbles. The sharp decline highlighted the industry’s over-reliance on hype-driven funding, urging both investors and project leaders to focus on long-term value.

Source: ESG

Regulatory Challenges: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has yet to clarify whether tokenized intellectual property counts as securities, leading to fundraising restrictions for some DAOs. Finding a balance between decentralization and legal compliance remains a critical challenge for the sector.

Source: CSO

Data Privacy Conflicts: The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) mandates data anonymization, which conflicts with blockchain’s transparency. Resolving the tension between privacy protection and data transparency will be crucial for DeSci’s sustainable growth.

Future Outlook

Integration of AI and Quantum Computing

With the rapid advancement of AI and quantum computing technologies, DeSci is poised for a new wave of transformation. These technologies not only enhance research efficiency but also provide security and computational power for decentralized research, accelerating breakthroughs in drug development, disease prediction, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

AI has shown tremendous potential in drug discovery, genetic engineering, and data analysis. For instance:

Drug Discovery: AI-driven deep learning models analyze massive molecular datasets to identify potential drug candidates and optimize molecular structures, reducing trial-and-error costs. Estimates suggest AI could shorten drug development cycles by over 40%, significantly lowering R&D expenses.

Source: Official

Google’s DeepMind AlphaFold model has successfully decoded numerous protein structures, delivering groundbreaking progress to biopharmaceutical research.

Source: official website

Decentralized data storage platforms like Ocean Protocol combine AI to optimize cross-institutional data access and sharing, fostering multi-party research collaboration.

Quantum Computing’s Impact:

Quantum computing challenges traditional cryptographic security, especially for RSA and ECDSA algorithms, which many decentralized research platforms rely on. DeSci projects are exploring Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) to safeguard research data and smart contracts. For example:

Source: Official

Post-Quantum Cryptography Applications: The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has advanced PQC standardization, selecting CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium as leading quantum-resistant algorithms. DeSci projects are integrating these algorithms to build quantum-secure research data storage and transmission systems.

Source: TechStartups

Analysts from DWFLabs predict that by 2025, decentralized research platforms will widely adopt quantum-safe cryptographic protocols. Projects like Polkadot and Filecoin are already exploring quantum-resistant frameworks to ensure long-term data security.

Mainstream Adoption and Regulatory Balance

For DeSci to achieve mainstream adoption, it must overcome technical barriers and navigate global regulatory landscapes to ensure sustainable growth.

Targeting Niche Fields

Certain niche research areas, such as rare disease studies and longevity research, are emerging as key adoption drivers. Traditional research systems often underfund these fields, but DeSci’s decentralized funding pools and DAO governance attract more resources and researchers.

Public Funding Support

Source: Theguardian

Public institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO) are starting to recognize DeSci’s potential. WHO recommends that countries explore models combining DeSci with public funding to support decentralized research initiatives, especially for global public health and environmental research.

Government Collaboration

Partnerships between governments and decentralized research organizations could provide DeSci with more stable funding, ensuring research outcomes benefit humanity rather than being controlled solely by capital interests.

Cross-Border Collaboration and Global Networks

DeSci isn’t limited to individual countries or regions—it’s evolving into a global research network. Cross-border clinical trials and multi-center studies are leveraging decentralized platforms to streamline data sharing and management, enhancing efficiency and transparency.

Moreover, DeSci holds the potential to become a global research resource integrator, connecting research institutions, foundations, labs, and developers worldwide to accelerate scientific progress collectively.

Policy and Regulatory Challenges

While the DeSci concept sounds promising, scientific research remains a long-term, high-cost process—far beyond what short-lived funding booms can sustain. Research requires continuous financial support, whereas the crypto industry’s inherently speculative nature often prioritizes short-term gains over long-term stability.

Currently, decentralized science lacks a stable funding model. Many DeSci projects rely on crypto financing, which struggles to match the deep resources available to traditional research systems, such as government, military, and large institutional funding.

Even though DeSci champions decentralization in theory, projects without long-term financial support may fail to achieve meaningful breakthroughs and ultimately revert to traditional institutions that hold core resources.

Conclusion

Overall, DeSci is not meant to overthrow traditional scientific research systems completely but rather serve as a parallel system to fill the gaps in the existing ecosystem. Despite facing speculative bubbles and technological bottlenecks, its breakthroughs in democratizing funding, promoting data openness, and fostering global collaboration are irreversible.

In the future, with the integration of AI agents and quantum technology, DeSci may evolve into the core engine of ‘Science 2.0,’ propelling humanity from ‘patent monopolies’ to a new era of ‘knowledge sharing.’

DeSci is creating unprecedented transformations for the research industry by leveraging blockchain and cryptocurrency-driven decentralized models. Through decentralized data storage, DAO governance, and token incentives, DeSci offers solutions for transparent research funding allocation and promotes global scientific resource sharing and collaboration. Despite regulatory and technological challenges, DeSci’s role will continue to grow as blockchain technology matures.