A worm’s neural net on-chain and Pump Science: DeSci steps up a gear

In 2024 crypto exchanges filled up with tokens named after scientific disciplines, chemical compounds, elements and even diseases. Late in the year, industry heavyweights held a meeting with decentralised-science (DeSci) enthusiasts; the segment duly rocketed.

This article explores how DAOs are raising funds for anti-ageing research and lunar colonisation—and why funds are trumpeting a new trend in decentralised science. It also looks at worms living on-chain alongside AI agents, and at Pump Science, which has little to do with meme-coins.

Where ideas meet money

According to Forbes forecasts for 2025, as dapps that solve real problems gain traction, digital assets will win broader acceptance. The author—who is also a partner at NovaBlock Capital—Lior Shimron expects crypto’s market capitalisation to top $8trn. In his view, practical Web3 applications coupled with an influx of developers, as well as innovation in applied sectors akin to DePIN and AI, should propel the market.

On November 13, 2024, three influential figures in blockchain met DeSci DeSci-community enthusiasts in person. The gathering in Bangkok was organised by YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs) and brought together former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Arthur Hayes, former CEO of crypto-derivatives exchange BitMEX.

Learning at a small gathering of DeSci entrepreneurs organized by Labs. pic.twitter.com/ebiaI0uRoJ

— CZ ? BNB (@cz_binance) November 13, 2024

Judging by videos posted by Bio Protocol, Buterin and CZ discussed the merits of decentralised science and its prospects. Highlights from Zhao’s remarks included:

• Thousands of DeSci projects will appear in 2025. “We need funding for many different small experiments. Blockchain is the best way I know to do this. At a global level you can fund different tasks in small chunks. We need such experiments to be run by the thousands”.

• The crypto community does not fully appreciate the value of science. “Many cryptocurrency users do not really understand biotechnology and tend to think short-term. But we will gradually bring together the worlds of crypto and science”.

• DAOs are an effective way to fund research and control outlays. “Scientists will increasingly use cryptocurrencies for funding thanks to platforms like Molecule. We are only beginning to develop ways to control research spending through decentralised communities”.

A long-time proponent of impact investing and crypto donations, Buterin appeared on The DeSci Podcast in early 2023. He described DeSci as a set of ideas sparked by the question of how new decentralised technologies can make science better.

During the Q&A, the Ethereum co-founder unexpectedly showed off a sample of VD001, the first longevity product—a dietary supplement—from DeSci start-up VitaDAO.

According to the project’s website, the main ingredient is spermidine, a natural polyamine that stimulates cells to renew and recycle. VitaDAO claims it slows nine of the 12 core biological processes associated with ageing. Two-thirds of the spermidine in the human body is produced by the gut microbiota and various tissues; the remainder comes from food.

The third prominent guest, Arthur Hayes, did not leave empty-handed. In an essay published on January 5, 2025, the investor, in his inimitable style, reported buying DeSci tokens for his family office.

“As Chief Investment Officer of Maelstrom, I will encourage those in the fund who are risk-inclined to crank it to the max. The first step in that direction was our decision to actively wade into the fast-developing market of decentralised-science shitcoins. We love undervalued trash and bought BIO, VITA, ATH, GROW, PSY, CRYO, NEURON tokens,” Hayes wrote.

The Thailand meeting sparked an unprecedented pop in DeSci metrics. First, Google Trends shows an exponential rise in related searches.

Second, the engagement metric tracked by Kaito AI’s analyst jumped by 2,640%.

After the Bangkok gathering, prices of “young” DeSci tokens also climbed. According to Messari, as of December 30, 2024, the top ten gainers were launched that same year.

Analysts’ predictions for the sector are upbeat; some even compare DeSci to DeFi in 2019.

DWF Labs managing partner Andrei Grachev was equally bullish, writing on X that AI agents and DeSci look like “the next hot narrative”.

DeSci DAOs aim for the Moon

According to a piece by synthetic-biology researcher John Cumbers, many biotech projects have launched via DeSci because most holding companies and non-profit and state funds are not keen to bankroll risky start-ups with small cheques.

“If we want to increase the pace of innovation by an order of magnitude, these are exactly the projects that must not be left unsupported—neither in the NIH NIH grant ‘valley of death’, nor in the vicious circle of venture funding, where you need funds to do research and you need research to get funds,” Cumbers wrote.

Biotech DAOs focus on small projects, helping them pursue breakthrough ideas. In return, tokenholders get governance over intellectual property in the form of IP-NFTs.

An Onchain Research report says DeSci projects deploy DAOs across five main use-cases:

• targeted funding of research;

• donations to purposes beyond research that nonetheless support it;

• fractional ownership of IP-NFTs;

• collective fundraising for narrowly focused scientific projects;

• data lakes—collecting, organising and selling data to accelerate research.

At the time of writing, per DeepDAO, the largest treasury belongs to ResearchHub Foundation, the DAO behind the eponymous project.

ResearchHub, a platform more than five years old, styles itself as a GitHub-like venue for researchers to converse and collaborate. The project was created by Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong.

On November 21, 2024, at the SciCon 2024 conference the team announced the launch of the ResearchHub Journal. At the presentation, participants highlighted the following advantages:

• more frequent views of scientific work;

• immediate preprint publication;

• rapid review—21 days;

• paid peer review.

In December, the journal Nature reported that ResearchHub pays reviewers $150 in ResearchCoin (RSC) per manuscript read.

The most active DeSci DAO is MoonDAO—an organisation literally preparing to send people to the Moon. As the project’s website puts it, it “accelerates humanity’s multi-planetary future” via a global network and an open platform for funding, collaboration and competitions that bring a lunar settlement closer. The DAO ranks first on three counts: number of proposals, participants and holders of its token, MOONEY.

Maelstrom analyst Lukas Rupert compared two leading narratives of the bull cycle: the fading first wave of AI agents, and the rise of DeSci tokens. He name-checked one of Arthur Hayes’s investments.

“AI agents and DeSci are the trending directions in the current bull cycle, and now it’s DeSci’s time to shine. The market cap of AI-agent tokens is over $16bn, whereas DeSci sits around $1bn pre-Bio. By comparison that looks tiny. The combined market cap of the first BioDAOs is under $150m. Early BioDAOs with low caps offer the greatest upside potential,” the analyst concluded.

Rupert added that the fund had picked the right time to invest in DeSci—“when it’s all just beginning”.

The platform he referenced, Bio Protocol, is designed to manage research and its funding via DAOs and tokenisation. It tops the DeSci section of CoinGecko by market cap. The first major project from the former Binance Labs has been listed on exchanges; in January 2025 the team announced the dapp’s expansion to the Solana blockchain.

Bio Protocol aims to bridge crypto users and the DeFi segment with scientists and biotech professionals through:

• Bioconomy. Provides liquidity and fair pricing for biotech DAOs, simplifying access to capital and transparent token trading for relevant projects;

• Bio Launchpad. A three-stage go-to-market platform for DAOs. First, community members use BIO tokens to vote on project funding and receive BioDAO tokens from winners. Next comes an acceleration phase in which approved projects raise capital via bond sales or auction, letting the market signal ongoing support. Finally, project tokens list on a DEX with liquidity-pool support;

• BIO Incubator. A 16-week programme for biotech start-ups with funding, mentorship and technical resources. Participants learn how to build a biotech organisation, launch a DAO and master Web3 tools;

• BioDAO Bible. A knowledge base for those looking to grow in DeSci.

Pump Science and the first digital organism

The DeSci ecosystem is expanding fast, spawning entire niches far removed from familiar medical projects and publishing platforms.

DeSci uses virtually all the tools and technologies of Web3. With ZKPs, for instance, apps such as Hippocrat let patients receive consultations without revealing their identity.

Origin Trail is building a verifiable network for decentralised AI. It uses a unique decentralised knowledge graph and the OriginTrail parachain to deliver AI-based solutions. The yesnoerror (YNE) protocol vets scientific papers with language models.

Rejuve.AI (RJV) is developing a smartphone app to help slow ageing. Developers on the Sui blockchain have presented AI agents for DeSci—SUI Desci Agents (DESCI).

Another DeSci project, Pump Science, offers gamified help to longevity researchers. Its game mechanics rest on a simple model with three variables: time spent, funding and research quality. The resulting data help predict the impact of future drugs on the human body.

Relying on their knowledge, users will launch tokens representing chemical compounds, then watch in real time as researchers test those compounds on animals.

Market prices for the corresponding tokens will reflect experimental results. At the first stage, once a token reaches a $69,000 market cap, lab tests will be run on worms, then on flies, and so on as follows:

Two projects launched on the platform—Rifampicin (RIF) and Urolithin A (URO)—rank in CoinGecko’s top-20 DeSci assets by market cap.

According to Pump Science’s roadmap, future additions include betting on research events, fundraising tools for platform projects, a marketplace for trading chemicals, AI-agent integration and the formation of a DAO.

Another project, Deep Worm (WORM), is an autonomous digital organism that lives on-chain. It emulates the neural architecture of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans and has 302 neurons. Combining biological neural networks and blockchain produces a digital entity capable of autonomous operation.

Caenorhabditis elegans is a free-living soil roundworm about 1mm long. C. elegans was the first multicellular organism to have its genome fully sequenced. Since then the worm has been a handy model for studying motor control, signalling in neural networks and chemotaxis.

The protocol runs with support from Marlin’s ZKP protocol, which ensures computational verifiability. The team aims to create a new class of autonomous digital life on-chain, where worm-inspired neural networks can evolve to underpin money and contracts.

Conclusions

DeSci emerged from the idea of using blockchain to advance transparency and equitable collaboration in research. It enables open data-sharing, decentralised funding mechanisms and traceable intellectual property, while addressing problems such as opacity and inefficient funding that plague traditional academia.

According to forecasts by analysts at MV Global, the segment will expand markedly by the end of 2025, with at least ten projects reaching market capitalisations above $100m. They also expect no fewer than 50 DeSci projects to launch this year.