DeSci is a crypto version of the AI4Sci movement. This article is based on a piece written by Zuo Ye, organized, translated, and written by ForesighNews. (Background: Can DeSci solve the "broken window effect" in research funding?) (Additional background: BIO launches V2, can the new Launchpad reignite the Desci craze?) The black box of large models is frustrating, and blockchain hopes to bring about a transparent white box in scientific research. In 1943, the cat owner of quantum states, Schrödinger, gave a difficult lecture in Dublin, demonstrating the relationship between atoms, life, and cells from the perspective of statistical physics. At that time, across the ocean, a young Watson was only 15 years old and already a freshman at the University of Chicago. After reading Schrödinger's lecture, Watson confirmed that genetics would be his lifelong ambition. A decade later, when the now PhD Watson 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. There are two trees in front of my house, one is a jujube tree, and the other is also a jujube tree. Anyone who has attended junior high school knows that genes are segments of information in DNA, like the "function body" in a code, which is the most basic implementation of functionality, while DNA is like an instance module and RNA acts like routing and communication functions, transmitting genetic information to specific objects. Watson discovered the structure of DNA, but humanity did not know how to utilize it, just as we know about Schrödinger's cat, but the cat is easy to find, while quantum communication would take many more years. At least Watson was luckier than Schrödinger; in the summer of 2012, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna discovered that CRISPR sequences and Cas proteins could be combined to artificially cut specific sequences and insert desired information segments, ultimately utilizing the human body's repair mechanisms to achieve grafting unknowingly. It is really similar to gardening pruning, connecting visibly apparent branches, under the unknown mechanisms of biology, one can also know the matching relationships between different plants – continuous experimentation is all that is needed. Experiments can continue, and cloning can do the same; cell nuclei and cytoplasm can also be separated and "connected," and with ongoing trials, cloning can achieve the miraculous effects of isomers, just as stated in "What is Life?" Gene editing is not mysterious; it is a further step of cloning, moving further into the microscopic realm, just as life from the atomic perspective is merely an irreversible process of thermal motion's final stillness, like time, perhaps it can be stretched or compressed, but it is never reversible. Humans can graft fruit trees, humans can clone animals, so can humans edit humans? In 2018, the mad scientist He Jiankui became Eve or that snake when he edited the genes of a pair of twin embryos whose parents had AIDS, thereby opening Pandora's box for humanity; cloned animals can be humanely destroyed, but are genetically edited humans still humans? Image description: CRISPR-Cas9 working principle, image source: @zuoyeweb3. However, the in-depth exploration at the genetic level presents a deadly temptation for certain groups – longevity, finding the genetic segments that affect lifespan, like a hacker of General Jin, modifying its value from 100, even adding a 0 would be sufficient. In 2023, Paradigm co-founder Fred Ehrsam decided to leave the crypto industry to establish a biotech research company, Nudge. Coincidentally, Fred is also a co-founder of Coinbase, which transitioned into crypto VC after going public in 2017. Also in 2017, Paul Kohlhaas joined Consensys as the BD director but left to start his own business after a year, asking why not use blockchain to do something more interesting? For example, doing research; Molecule was established in 2018, one of the earlier explorations of the intersection of blockchain and scientific research, especially in biological research. Meanwhile, AlphaGo's parent company, DeepMind, released its life science model, AlphaFold, in 2016, demonstrating its power in protein structure observation. In 2020, AlphaFold2 successfully solved the protein folding problem, and the 25-year-old Watson had his Nobel Prize locked in; this time, the 4-year-old AlphaFold2 is also set to capture 50% of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. Fred's transition in 2023 is not even considered early; as early as 2020, another Coinbase founder, Armstrong, had initiated the establishment of ResearchHub to deconstruct the systemic research processes from universities to papers to funding, introducing incentive mechanisms to shift the burden of tenure, profit for paper publishers, and fund applications away from scholars. Especially since scholars bear the cost of submitting papers to publishers, but the reviewers selected by publishers often work for free, with only the publishers profiting from the price difference. All elements are in place; AI, scientific research, and papers are converging into life sciences, indeed the 21st century is the century of biology. The crypto world offers longevity, first seeking the elixir of life. Decentralized scientific research (DeSci) is branded as pharmaceutical R&D in life sciences. DeSci is a crypto version of the AI4Sci movement, but it focuses heavily on AI, life sciences, and new drug development; perhaps it has taken some meme-like "detours" along the way. Remember Paul Kohlhaas's Molecule? In 2022, it even received investment from Balaji; no one can resist the temptation of longevity. Further down the line, in 2022, Paul Kohlhaas established Bio Protocol, beginning to develop products that could help crypto big shots live longer, with multiple sub-DAOs, covering various scientific mysteries of life from male to female. In 2024, after "rebirth," CZ and Vitalik appeared together at the Bangkok DeSci Day, and the now V God even recommended the supplement VD001 from Bio Protocol's Vita DAO to the older CZ. Subsequently, Bio successfully received investment from CZ's YZi, and the token smoothly made its way to Binance. Moreover, Paul Kohlhaas is quite adept at keeping up with the times, having also created a Pump Science imitating PumpFun; does combining memes with scientific research have potential? However, after Bio surged, there was dissatisfaction with the delivered results; in traditional research fields, developing a new drug often costs over a billion dollars and takes years or even decades, whereas the secondary market of Bio cannot wait for five minutes; taking the money without pulling the market is the original sin of true scientific research. The story does not end here, as the wave of Agents has arrived. AI Agents truly hold the potential to change the efficiency of scientific research, and more interestingly, ResearchHub received a $2 million investment in February 2025, and DeSci's Agent posts are now being reviewed. In August 2025, Bio Protocol released V2 plan...

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