When it comes to the hottest track in the past two weeks, it is undoubtedly DeSci.
Since November 8, when Binance Labs announced investment in BIO Protocol, under the co-brand endorsement of CZ and Vitalik, this previously dormant concept has risen again, attracting hot money, with RIF and URO generating thousands of times in wealth, also rolling out a new potential MEME track.
DeSci, also known as decentralized science, refers to the behavior of establishing public infrastructure through Web3 technology to achieve open and fair funding, storage, and dissemination of scientific knowledge, as cited by Messari. DeSci encourages scientists to openly share research results and gain recognition while allowing anyone easy access to and contribution to research outcomes. In simple terms, DeSci aims to leverage blockchain technology to solve research problems, covering funding, knowledge sharing, review, intellectual property, etc.
In terms of track performance, DeSci focuses on fundraising, and most project models rely on tokenization to finance projects to support scientific research. At the same time, research results advocate for on-chain to enhance transparency and protect intellectual property. Currently, the core role of DeSci is to open new funding channels for scientific research that requires long-term investment. By linking the seemingly unrelated fields of crypto and scientific research, it has given tokenization more practical significance, thus being heavily promoted by the market as one of the practical cases of MEME.
Regarding the root cause of this round of DeSci explosion, the celebrity effect is key. On November 8, according to official disclosure, Binance completed strategic financing for BIO Protocol, bringing this 'on-chain scientific version of Y Combinator' to light. Subsequently, CZ attended the DeSci Day event held by Binance in Bangkok, where Vitalik was also present, and the two discussed DeSci together, further pushing DeSci to the forefront.
The crypto circle, adept at finding hotspots, quickly surged into a DeSci craze, with Pump.Science becoming an instant hit, and RIF and URO projects generating thousand-fold profits, making this track completely break out. Mechanism Capital partner Andrew Kang even stated that 'the DeSci field now feels like the DeFi era in early 2019. Everything is still very primitive and experimental, but a basic conclusion can be drawn from it—there is enormous potential.' Influenced by this, even amidst a significant market downturn today, according to SoSoValue data, the DeSci sector is still rising against the trend by 3.35%.
Although the vision for DeSci is promising, the opening of funding channels for scientific research undoubtedly holds value, but from the current perspective, the speculative component is clearly greater than the practical utility. Essentially, the long-term nature of scientific research and the short-term profit-seeking nature of the MEME field present a significant divergence, hoping to use pure speculative MEME tracks to balance the zero-speculation research field feels quite fanciful.
On the one hand, scientific research has a great deal of uncertainty, with drug development often taking decades; if the direction goes wrong, it is a total loss, characterized by high investment and high risk, requiring sustainable long-term investment. This is why research funding usually adopts a model led by the state, with leading enterprises guiding it, combining national capital and social capital to hedge risks and maintain competitiveness. But in the crypto market, attention is the core; hotspots are hard to sustain. Currently, the hot money surrounding DeSci is mainly concentrated on the meme coin issuance platform for scientific research projects, Pump.Science, reflecting the market's focus on the profit effect.
In fact, from a conceptual perspective, DeSci has a somewhat new wine in an old bottle feel. If we trace back in history, VitaDAO, initiated by Vitalik in July 2021, is the earliest and most representative DeSci project, but the development of this project has not been as grand as its concept suggests.
VitaDAO is a community-owned project dedicated to funding early longevity research, aiming to promote scientific innovation through the collective power of the community, researching and supporting projects aimed at extending human lifespan and preventing age-related diseases. In other words, VitaDAO is the DAO community that focuses on longevity research.
Previously, due to strategic investment from the traditional pharmaceutical company Pfizer in the project, VitaDAO briefly sparked discussions, but subsequently, as the conversation faded, it quickly returned to silence. Currently, VitaDAO is also widely laying out, not only deploying $4.2 million in funding, supporting 24 projects, but also conducting research collaborations with well-known universities like Newcastle University. However, relative to its actions, actual results seem quite limited. Since 2021, it wasn't until recently at Devcon that Vitalik finally showcased the first product of VitaDAO, VD001.
On the other hand, although the on-chain of research results will enhance transparency and protect intellectual property, benefiting scientific dissemination, in the relatively closed field of research, this point is almost structurally disruptive. In today's research system, most research teams maintain a high degree of confidentiality regarding research results and experimental data during the research process to prevent unauthorized persons from stealing, utilizing, or leaking the research results, especially when deep interests are involved, confidentiality is of utmost importance. With the strong entry of decentralization, ensuring data security is naturally difficult.
With the support of the above two, it can be anticipated that, apart from the surface applications in research content, review fairness, and data tokenization, only projects that are extremely difficult to implement, time-consuming, and highly collaborative will fit 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 life.
The elixir of life is ultimately just a beautiful vision, and the market's attention to DeSci is only for the liquidity it brings behind it. Although the BIO Genesis community fundraising campaign initiated by BIOProtocol raised $33 million, and the DeSci sector has 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 secondary market attention is also performing flatly, with the market capitalizations of VITA and RIF falling between $120 million and $200 million, far from the $1 billion market capitalizations of other leading sectors.
Development status of the DeSci sector, source: sosovalue
However, if we look beyond the long term, DeSci is relatively a good sector in the MEME field. Compared to other MEMEs, DeSci has a stronger narrative. Although the celebrity effect is difficult to maintain, it has the support of actual research projects, thus possessing a fundamental effect; any innovation in research and product development will strengthen the narrative. The biomedical sector is generally open to fundraising, and the emerging nature of this field makes it more likely to connect with the crypto field. Additionally, DeSci has the potential for a breakout effect; the current sector's celebrity effect is temporarily concentrated within crypto, led by Vitalik and CZ, while celebrities from traditional medical and research fields have not yet entered, and large institutions have yet to emerge, providing direction for future narratives.
Returning to the macro market, whether it’s zoos or artists, AI-driven or research-validated, it can be seen that MEME has already become the main carrier of market funds. However, the once prosperous bearer of this wave is still the altcoins. Looking solely at the altcoin market, Bitcoin has risen from $10,000 to the brink of $100,000, the follow-up effect of Ethereum has significantly decreased, and the performance of altcoins has mostly declined, with only SOL and XRP among the top ten crypto assets showing an increase, while the explosive growth of altcoins seems difficult to replicate.
At its core, the change in the flow of funds is key. In traditional bull market transmission, the general path is from high-stability assets gradually sinking and overflowing to low-stability assets, activating high-revenue preferences from low-revenue sources, namely mainstream coins - altcoins - MEME coins - other sectors. However, this year, this path is not as it used to be. But currently, with the entry of institutions and saturation of project numbers, large external new liquidity will only flow into the Bitcoin ecosystem. The public chain ecosystem has no strong applications emerging, and altcoins are deeply trapped in supply-demand institutional crises, with Bitcoin becoming the siphon for ecological funds, and funds from other sectors being siphoned away, leaving only fast in and out, with concentrated wealth effects in MEME.
A typical evidence is that Pump.fun has become the biggest winner of the bull market. According to Dune data, as of November 24, Pump.fun's cumulative revenue is close to $230 million ($228,908,720), with a total number of deployed tokens approximately 3.74 million.
Of course, the two are not a substitution effect; the rise of MEME does not mean the collapse of altcoins. With regulatory relaxation and sector rotation, altcoins may still reverse their fortunes. However, the enhancement of MEME's market position undoubtedly reflects a structural change in the market. In fact, whether it is Pumpfun live broadcasts, TikTok shoutouts, or AI-driven initiatives, with the entry of Generation Z and the rapid evolution of new technologies, the crypto market is experiencing profound changes in narrative logic, communication models, and operational methods.
Traditional altcoin projects that revolve around token release to maintain narrative long-term harvesting of profits are difficult to sustain, and the market is no longer willing to pay for VC tokens but is migrating towards a direction that is fairer, more autonomous, and closer to the core of tokens, with attention becoming increasingly scarce. In this regard, the combination of MEME and projects seems more competitive than single projects; altcoins are dominated, while MEME is relatively fair. MEME lacks long-term nature, while projects provide a fundamental basis, and the two are highly compatible, which may be one reason for the rise of concepts like AIMEME and DeSci.
However, regardless, the formation of consensus has a high degree of randomness, and MEME gold mines are few and far between. Citing Panews data, as of November 21, Pump.fun has issued a total of 3.59 million tokens, a quantity that far exceeds the total token issuance over the past 10 years in the crypto world. Among them, the number of tokens that graduated (hit the upper limit on Raydium) is 50,389, accounting for about 1.4%. There are only 32 tokens with a market capitalization exceeding $100 million, with less than one ten-thousandth of MEME's market value exceeding $10 million.
In the long term, finding a consensus balance between attention and longevity will become an important issue in the development of MEME, but for individuals, survival and not going to zero is the premise of everything.