DeSci Manifesto

We would like to begin by dissecting the buzzword, which often rather than describe things, obscures a clear vision. Let’s establish the definition of the De- part and the -Sci part.

The word science has lately been misused to prop up dogmas resulting in the term being largely misrepresented or misunderstood. Using science as a religious invocation of something being settled is against the original spirit of science.

To define science we will be referencing David Deutsch’s framing. Science is a quest for better explanations. It is not a set of ultimate truths. Science is about the discovery of new knowledge, which itself is infinite. New knowledge that explains the world better replaces the old knowledge. Science is therefore self-correcting and ever-evolving.

The De- (in DeSci) refers to decentralization, a set of underlying technologies that should help to revolutionize the funding of scientific research. The credibly neutral money and finance give the ability to rapidly mobilize capital globally in a permissionless manner.

We often go beyond “decentralization” and jokingly reference “degen” as the De- part of DeSci. Financial degenerates aka degens are a memetic archetype that describes unnecessary risk-taking characters in trading mostly cryptoassets.

In this case, we are reframing degen to someone who gambles on the outcome of the scientific experiment. Think gambling as tinkering. We believe that taking risks is an inseparable part of unlocking new knowledge. With that comes the downside on the part of the individual that leads to a greater outcome for the aggregate.

We like to present the degen scientist as a Victorian-era independent scientist. Someone like Michael Faraday. He was degening by not shying away from a risky experiment that he was oftentimes funding himself. The original scientists were genuinely curious entrepreneurs taking risks and not trained professionals

This was before the government took on the role of a major sponsor of science and academia turned into a bureaucratic hierarchy. Science has grown dependent on politics and rules which constrain the ability to find new knowledge. Politics fosters obedience and is governed by power.

We could say that science has drifted too far from its early pioneering days of enlightenment when it attracted more risk-taking characters who had a passion for knowledge-seeking with some of their opinions very controversial. Disobedience is a part of breaking through the status quo or a plateau.

Therefore DeSci is a way to unbundle research from the existing power structures in which the incentives are not aligned with rapid progress. Putting the above definitions together we can define DeSci as an experimental quest for better explanations that is independent of institutional or state-controlled funding. It is market over status. DeSci has rapid discovery of information as a clear goal. Could this be our best choice to achieve rapid technological progress?

The 3 Theses

The Enlightenment was an era in which formerly exclusive privileges were extended to a wider audience. The rapid scientific and industrial progress of the 18th century was based on these expanding liberties. Knowledge began to grow rapidly.

To us, crypto is fundamentally promoting liberty by permissionless access to (new) markets. It is decoupling an exclusive privilege of organizations like central and commercial banks, brokers and custodians, and opening them for wide access. There is nothing inherent about bundling politics and power with markets.

Today as science grows more dependent on credentialism, state, politics and power - it’s mostly a bureaucracy. It optimizes for things that are not aligned with rapid scientific progress. Our institutions are on autopilot that disproportionately favors regulation over experimentation.

In our view, crypto injects, in Nietzsche's terms, a little bit of the Dionysian spirit into the Apollonian; the raw experimentation into fragile bloated bureaucracy. Bringing markets into domains formerly reserved for those relying on credentials to have access to the frontier opens up new possibilities.

This does not come without downsides. Frontier is usually unorderly and the profit is more illusory than real. The question is if the overall benefits outweigh the costs. Our thesis is that despite the expected failures of DeSci projects, the few winners could achieve extremely positive outcomes. It is like with startups, most fail, few struggle and only a handful thrive.

To further elaborate on our general conviction on DeSci we are presenting three separate theses that are intertwined but could be thought of separately.

The philosophical one: DeSci to unbundle science from academia, bureaucracy and government funding by introducing crypto incentives and means of funding. Scientists become entrepreneurial tinkerers instead of grant-optimizing bureaucrats.

The degen one: Biotech stocks are known for volatility and outright gambling on the outcome of clinical trials. Imagine if you could gamble on the outcome of pre-trials, taking it as early as a research proposal. Speculation becomes the wedge. Will degens flip outrageous research tokens on pump.science instead of memecoins?

The commercial one: DeSci bringing science closer to people via open funding. Rather than science being some distant authority that tells us we are wrong, scientific endeavour becomes a product that users can buy and own. Imagine memecoins as brands but with actual utility or a promise of something.

Tokens Are Access

In a similar fashion of choosing facts based on ideology we might be entering a consumer era in which culture is more important than the product itself. We argue that in crypto we have been selling culture over products for a while. As bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana are all in the market of selling blockspace for some reason this commodity being abundant we attribute premium to specific tokens.

We can argue that security guarantees are higher on more mature and expensive chains so it’s not necessarily only a premium good. But the memetic premium plays a role. The rotation of the narrative has been more important than the actual progress. In a way, tokens have become the brand and the product in one.

The memecoin craze is an extension of this. Pump.fun has made $150M in a year by enabling memecoins to be launched into a simple up or down social game. Each token becomes a productized meme with higher or lower memetic premium.

Tokens are means of extending markets into new places and the productization of memes is a primitive example of this. Now imagine we could bring this tokenized liquidity into scientific discovery. Imagine memecoins but with a promise of grand vision and potential utility.

The combination of the three theses, (i) the speculation, (ii) the commercialization and (iii) the philosophical reformation unlocks new markets for scientific discovery. R&D gets packaged into a brand that is sold to consumers. The token is the brand that is a form of pay-as-you-go scientific discovery.

I’d like to reiterate our understanding of tokens. Tokens are the product but also a novel form of organizing online that enables:

1. rapid global capital formation (around a purpose/product/R&D etc.)
2. co-creation with attribution (social recognition + routing financial value to the origination point of ideas)
3. aligning of incentives (creating a cohesive microeconomic unit)
4. a governance proxy

Potentially they transition the consumer culture from UGC to UGP (user-generated content to products), starting with culture and memes. And asking if tokens are a form of security is a wrong question. Securities will one day become one form of tokens. Are books a type of the bible or is the bible a type of a book?

Plus Ultra

To tie this up we believe that one can package scientific research into products with pop-culture memes/culture/icons and then bootstrap liquidity or funding for it through a goal/promise. This is the transition from influencer-oriented white-label product culture to vision-oriented commercialization of science.

What we propose is an idea of science becoming a fully commercialized endeavour rather than a government or/and corporation-sanctioned tool. Just like the voyage into the New World a couple of centuries ago, everyone could finance highly dubious quests into new territories. The medieval non-plus ultra turned into a plus ultra. Nothing beyond became more beyond.

A 2006 post by Nick Szabo titled “How to succeed or fail at the frontier” compares the pay-as-you-go voyage of Portuguese sailors who built a commercial empire from Africa to Japan and the frontier-as-a-PR fleet of a Chinese emperor in the 15th century. One was an agile commercial endeavor, the other was an oversized naval fleet displaying the glory of the emperor.

Whether that applies to space discovery or scientific exploration on Earth, it is not a bad idea to explore a more decentralized approach to funding small or grandiose scientific experiments. Frontier should never be a credentialed walled garden.

It is perhaps why information technology has been advancing so rapidly with the frontier not artificially gated. You could be a college dropout and build technology that changes the world. There is no need for a PhD program lasting years, optimizing for politics only to arrive at the frontier realizing not much is happening and the rules of the game don’t favor experimentation.

A radical idea for some, but in a similar way consumers spend money on products of questionable quality because they belong to an icon (influencer), we could redirect some of that money into scientific research wrapped in a token. Speculation plays a part in this but so does the noble idea of progress.

Today we are at the dawn of DeSci. We have built a bottom-up capacity to launch science DAOs and also a top-down vehicle for liquidity via bio.xyz. The bottom-up culture movements end up funding and developing a product (doing science). You can view HairDAO, VitaDAO etc. as a culture, brand, supply chain and an IP rolled into a token.

The top-down approach of bio.xyz gets the flywheel going by kickstarting a reflexive momentum that will enable:

1. crypto degens to bet on bio DAOs and their future breakthroughs (diversify from memecoins)
2. attract and inspire scientific endeavours to build on DeSci rails thus furthering this reflexive momentum

Closing Remarks & Disclaimer

Despite our conviction DeSci remains a highly experimental and nascent industry. Zee Prime does have a vested interest in its success as we hold positions in multiple DeSci projects and DAOs. We encourage the reader to approach the space in a scientific manner - with high skepticism but an open mind.