The Rise of DeSci: Can On-Chain Science Achieve Immortality?

In the past two weeks, decentralized science (DeSci) has become one of the hottest tracks in the crypto space. DeSci aims to leverage Web3 technology to establish public infrastructure for the open funding, storage, and dissemination of scientific knowledge. It encourages researchers to openly share their results and gain recognition, while also allowing anyone to easily access and contribute to research findings.

Currently, DeSci is primarily focused on fundraising. Most projects finance research projects through tokenization and put research results on-chain to enhance transparency and protect intellectual property. The core role of DeSci is to open up new fundraising channels for scientific research that requires long-term investment, linking the seemingly unrelated fields of cryptocurrency and scientific research, and giving tokenization more practical significance.

The outbreak of this round of DeSci craze is closely related to the celebrity effect. After a certain trading platform completed strategic financing for BIO Protocol, the founder of that platform discussed DeSci with the founder of Ethereum, bringing this concept to the forefront. Subsequently, the crypto community quickly sparked a DeSci frenzy, with multiple related projects yielding huge returns, causing this sector to completely break out.

Despite the promising vision of DeSci, which undoubtedly provides valuable new funding channels for scientific research, the hype currently outweighs the actual utility. There is a significant contradiction between the long-term nature of scientific research and the short-term profit-seeking nature of the MEME field, making it seem somewhat unrealistic to expect a pure speculative MEME track to coexist with a zero-speculation research domain.

Scientific research is characterized by high investment and high risk, requiring sustainable long-term investment. This is also why research funding typically adopts a model led by the state and large enterprises, combining national capital and social capital to diversify risks and maintain competitiveness. However, in the crypto market, attention is the core, and trends are difficult to sustain. Currently, the hot money surrounding DeSci is mainly concentrated on meme coin issuance platforms for scientific research projects, showing the market's focus on the profit-making effect.

Conceptually, DeSci has a flavor of new wine in an old bottle. As early as July 2021, the founder of Ethereum initiated the VitaDAO project, which is one of the earliest and most representative DeSci projects. However, the development of this project has not been as remarkable as its concept. VitaDAO is a community-owned project dedicated to funding early longevity research, aiming to drive scientific innovation through community power and to research and support projects that extend human lifespan.

Although putting research results on-chain can enhance transparency and intellectual property protection, benefiting scientific dissemination, it is almost a structural disruption in the relatively closed field of research. Under the current research system, most research teams maintain a high level of confidentiality regarding their results and data to prevent unauthorized use or leakage. The strong intervention of decentralization may affect data security.

Under the influence of these factors, it can be anticipated that, apart from surface applications such as research content, review fairness, and data tokenization, only those topics that are extremely difficult, time-consuming, and require high levels of collaboration will be suitable for the crypto model. From this wave of enthusiasm, most DeSci projects are targeting a core issue of common concern for all humanity—longevity, which has led the market to jokingly refer to DeSci as the on-chain elixir of immortality.

Immortality is ultimately just a beautiful vision; the market focuses on DeSci mainly for the liquidity it brings. Although a certain DeSci project's community fundraising activity raised a large amount of capital and the DeSci sector has also soared in the past two weeks, the primary market actions are limited, and large institutions have yet to participate. From the perspective of leading projects, the performance in the secondary market is mediocre, and the market capitalization of major projects is far from that of other sector leaders.

From a long-term perspective, DeSci is relatively good in the MEME space. Compared to other MEMEs, DeSci has a stronger narrative. Although the celebrity effect is difficult to maintain, there is a fundamental effect due to the support of actual research projects. Any scientific innovation and product development will strengthen the narrative. In addition, the biomedical sector has a high demand for funding, and its emerging nature makes it more likely to connect with the crypto space. DeSci also has the potential for a breakout effect; the current celebrity effect is mainly concentrated within crypto, while celebrities from traditional medicine and research fields have not yet entered, and large institutions have also not emerged, providing direction for future narratives.

From a macro market perspective, whether it's a zoo or artists, AI-driven or research-validated, MEME has become the main carrier of market funds. However, the main beneficiaries of this round of enormous wealth have been altcoins. From the altcoin market perspective, Bitcoin has risen from $10,000 to nearly $100,000, while the follow-up effect of Ethereum has significantly diminished, and most altcoins have seen declines. Among the top ten crypto assets, only a few have increased, and the explosive growth of altcoins seems difficult to replicate.

From a core perspective, the change in capital flow is key. In traditional bull market transmission, funds typically flow from high-stability assets downwards to low-stability assets, activating high-yield preferences from low-yield sources. However, this pathway has changed this year. With the entry of institutions and the saturation of project numbers, large amounts of new external liquidity mainly flow into the Bitcoin ecosystem, while the public chain ecosystem lacks strong application emergence. Altcoins are deeply trapped in a supply-demand structure crisis, and Bitcoin has become a siphon for ecological funds, attracting capital from other sectors. Only the fast-in, fast-out, wealth-effect concentrated MEME has emerged, thus turning the altcoin season into MEME season.

A typical evidence is that a certain MEME platform has become the biggest winner of the bull market. According to data, as of November 24, the platform's cumulative revenue is close to $230 million, with a total number of deployed tokens of about 3.74 million.

Of course, the rise of MEME does not mean the decline of altcoins. With regulatory easing and sector rotation, altcoins still have the potential to make a comeback against the odds. However, the enhancement of MEME's market position undoubtedly reflects a structural shift in the market. In fact, with the entry of a new generation of users and the rapid evolution of new technologies, the crypto market is undergoing profound changes in narrative logic, dissemination models, and operational methods.

Traditional copycat projects rely on token releases to maintain a narrative of long-term exploitation, which is difficult to sustain. The market is no longer willing to pay for venture capital tokens, but is shifting towards a direction that is fairer, more autonomous, and closer to the core of tokens, with attention becoming increasingly scarce. From this perspective, the combination of MEME and projects seems to be more competitive than a single project; the copycats dominate, while MEME is relatively fair. MEME lacks long-term viability, while projects provide fundamentals, making the two highly compatible. This may also be one of the reasons for the rise of concepts like AIMEME and DeSci.

However, the formation of consensus is highly random, and there are very few gold mines in MEME. According to data, as of November 21, a certain MEME platform has issued a total of 3.59 million tokens, far exceeding the total token issuance in the crypto world over the past 10 years. The proportion of tokens that have successfully launched is about 1.4%. Moreover, the number of tokens with a market value exceeding 100 million USD is only 32, with less than one in ten thousand of the MEME market value able to exceed 10 million USD.

In the long run, finding a balance of consensus between attention and longevity will become an important issue for the development of MEME. However, for individual investors, ensuring the safety of funds and avoiding losses are the primary considerations.