Author: Revc, Golden Finance
After material abundance, crypto whales, like tech giants, began to focus on the biotech track of 'immortality.'
On November 13, Binance founder CZ shared his experience attending a small decentralized science (DeSci) entrepreneurship gathering organized by Binance Labs on social platform X, along with a photo with Ethereum founder Vitalik. At this event, Vitalik introduced CZ to VitaDAO's first longevity product—VD001, a natural high-dose spermidine supplement approved by the Thai Food and Drug Administration. CZ expressed hope to see 1,000 DeSci-related projects emerge next year during the interaction.
On November 8, Binance Labs announced its investment in BIO Protocol. The BIO platform enables global scientists, patients, and investors to jointly fund, develop, and co-own new drugs and therapies. Currently, the BIO network consists of seven BioDAOs, focusing on diverse fields such as cryopreservation, women's health, and psychedelic drugs for mental health.
Meanwhile, keen crypto users seized the Desci hotspot over the weekend, participating in the frenzy of MEME tokens worth tens of millions of dollars.
Introduction to Desci-related projects
Bio Protocol
Bio Protocol is a new financial protocol designed for decentralized science (DeSci), aimed at accelerating capital and talent inflow into scientific research through on-chain mechanisms. Its core goals include:
1. Create and support the BioDAO network, providing on-chain funding and liquidity for scientific research.
2. Standardize the framework, economic model, and data products of BioDAO to enhance the efficiency of generating and commercializing scientific intellectual property (IP) and data.
3. Provide ongoing funding and liquidity to address the long-term development needs of scientific research.
Core Operational Module
BIO Protocol achieves its goals through five core functions:
1. Curation:
- Use $BIO tokens to filter new BioDAO projects and select quality projects through community voting.
- Holders use locked vBIO tokens to indicate support, and successfully selected projects will receive funding, support, and market priority.
2. Funding:
- Provide initial seed round financing opportunities for selected BioDAO projects, allowing participants to obtain terms equivalent to or better than those of institutional investors.
- Ensure a high degree of consistency between research and community participation.
3. Liquidity:
- Provide market liquidity for BioDAO through BIO tokens and other assets held by the BIO Treasury (such as ETH).
- Reduce exchange costs and accumulate protocol-owned liquidity (POL) through liquidity pools (e.g., VITA/BIO, BIO/ETH).
4. Reward Mechanism (Bio/acc Rewards):
- Distributing BIO tokens as rewards to incentivize BioDAO to achieve milestones (such as advancing IP to clinical stages or achieving sales revenue).
5. Meta-Governance:
- BIO holds multiple BioDAO tokens, granting the community governance over the entire ecosystem (BioDAO and IP assets).
The value of the BIO Protocol comes from:
1. Token Distribution:
- Provide $100,000 in funding for new BioDAOs in exchange for a 6.9% token allocation; at the same time, the BIO Treasury can hold equity in their scientific IP.
2. Protocol-Owned Liquidity (POL):
- Continuously add value to the BIO Treasury through liquidity pool earnings (BIO, BioDAO tokens, IP tokens, ETH, etc.).
3. Uses of BIO Tokens:
- Curate the selection and funding plans of BioDAO.
- Priority participation in BioDAO token and IP sales.
- Enjoy discounts on BioDAO products/services.
- Vote on fund allocation and protocol updates in governance.
Currently, the second round of BIO token auction has been completed, raising about $58 million, but the tokens have not yet circulated. There are only about 3,200 holders, mainly institutions and large holders. Additionally, the tokens have an inflation mechanism, with details pending.
pump.science
Currently, three MEME tokens under the Desci concept are being pursued by major funds, with RIF's market value reaching $180 million.
Rif is deployed by pump.science, and the project has undergone strict screening and examination. The Desci track shows a higher threshold for asset issuance compared to traditional MEMEs. Pump.Science is a decentralized science (DeSci) platform based on the Solana blockchain, aimed at promoting longevity research. The project is funded by the Solana Foundation, combining IP-tokenization and real-time experimental transparency to incentivize community participation in scientific research. Its core experiments focus on compound testing, including Urolithin A ($URO) and Rifampicin ($RIF), with test subjects ranging from worms to humans, gradually unlocking experiments through market valuation (such as $69k for worms and $10m for the human stage). Experimental data is live-streamed in a scientific transparency model similar to Twitch, allowing anyone to submit compound suggestions for testing.
Rif
RIF is the experimental research token related to the antibiotic Rifampicin, whose potential anti-aging effects have attracted attention from the medical community. Research on model organisms such as Caenorhabditis elegans has shown that Rifampicin can activate cellular defense mechanisms, enhancing resistance to stress and damage. It helps reduce oxidative stress and maintain protein quality within cells, promoting healthier and longer-lived organisms. Although research is still in its early stages and its application in humans has not yet been confirmed, Rifampicin's ability to enhance cellular health makes it a promising candidate for anti-aging therapy development.
As of 6 PM Beijing time on the 18th, RIF's 24-hour increase exceeded 129%, with a market value of nearly $200 million. As the leading player in the track, it continues to trigger market FOMO sentiment, with some smart money securing RIF at a low point and gaining a profit of 74 times.
Uro
URO is the experimental research token related to Urolithin A. Urolithin A is a natural compound produced by the human gut microbiome through the metabolism of ellagitannins (such as the active ingredients found in pomegranates), which has unique biological functions in cellular health. It supports the generation of new mitochondria by activating mitophagy to clear aging or dysfunctional mitochondria, helping cells optimize energy metabolism and improve overall efficiency and vitality. In animal studies, Urolithin A has been shown to extend the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans, demonstrating its anti-aging potential.
Similarly, in the past 24 hours, it has surged by 113%, with a market value of nearly $70 million.
SCIHUB
SCIHUB advocates for academic freedom and resistance against the long-standing monopoly in the academic publishing industry. Sci-Hub, founded by Russian Alexandra Elbakyan, provides free access to academic papers, helping users overcome the high costs of downloading research articles. Elbakyan faced economic barriers during her student days and created Sci-Hub after self-learning programming. Sci-Hub is particularly popular in China, with Chinese users accounting for a significant portion of its traffic and donations. The platform faces multiple lawsuits, mainly from publishers like Elsevier, and its domains and social media accounts have been blocked. Despite legal challenges, Elbakyan continues to rely on crowdfunding to maintain service operations.
The existence of this platform highlights the ongoing issues in the academic publishing industry, where high subscription fees limit access to academic research outcomes. Many researchers support Sci-Hub because it is convenient and easy to use. Elbakyan hopes to restore the paper upload function of Sci-Hub and introduce AI features to enhance its services. In China, Sci-Hub is affectionately referred to as 'Little Bird,' and Elbakyan is hailed as the 'Academic Goddess.' The logo of Sci-Hub consists of a hammer and sickle along with a key, symbolizing its stance in the copyright struggle. Here is the main process of the struggle:
In May 2017, Elsevier submitted a list of 100 articles illegally provided by Sci-Hub and LibGen to the court, requesting a permanent injunction and $15 million in damages. On June 21 of the same year, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of Elsevier after a default judgment. Subsequently, on November 6, 2017, the court ordered Sci-Hub to pay $4.8 million to the American Chemical Society (ACS) and blocked its servers and domains. Nevertheless, Elbakyan stated in an interview with (The Scientist) that she would not pay the damages.
In December 2018, a Russian court, responding to a lawsuit from British publisher Springer Nature, blocked multiple domains related to Sci-Hub. In January 2021, Twitter suspended the account of Sci-Hub for posting pirated papers.
Narratively, SCIHUB more easily invokes widespread sympathy and resonates with the long-term oppression experienced by industry scholars. From this perspective, MEME has evolved into a community expression of sentiment against social inequality.
In the past 24 hours, SCIHUB also recorded a 158% increase, with a market value reaching $50 million.
Summary
The Desci track demonstrates independence in project review and application, combined with the launch of MEME assets, providing support for cutting-edge scientific exploration through 'community finance'. However, there is uncertainty in the implementation of related concepts, and investors need to pay attention to associated risks. From the financing operations of BioProtocol, until assets are issued to the PumpFun market, the team shows a high level of professionalism, but it should also consider whether excessive financial speculation deviates from the original intention of experimentation. Whether Desci is close to us remains a vision for the super-rich, which has become less important to investors in the short term.
If we were to summarize the current booming MEME market in one sentence, 'Initial Emotion Offering' may be a relatively fitting understanding. Narratives that are more likely to resonate emotionally with people, such as the Pnut hamster and SciHub, are more likely to yield excess returns in the context of a bull market.
