[TL;DR]
- The current academic ecosystem reveals structural limitations that hinder innovation, due to monopolies of large publishers like Elsevier, unpaid peer review, and a complex patent system.
- DeSci enables researchers to have full ownership through decentralized publishing and token-based incentives, ensuring fair rewards based on contribution across all fields, including healthcare, climate, and open source.
- Based on WaaS, governance tokens, and interoperability, global scientific knowledge is connected into a single network, completing a transparent and inclusive scientific democracy.
1. Structural Limitations of the Existing Academic Ecosystem: The Vicious Cycle of Monopoly and Opacity
1.1. Monopoly in Academic Publishing: The Real Value Taken by Elsevier
When examining the process by which the results of research conducted daily by scientists around the world reach readers, one can observe a striking contradiction. Large academic publishers such as Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley neither conduct direct research, write papers, nor perform peer review, yet they generate annual revenues in the billions of dollars. Their business model is essentially based on “reselling content obtained for free at a high price,” which represents one of the biggest contradictions in the modern academic ecosystem.
At the core of this structure lies the monopoly of intermediaries between knowledge production and access. Researchers provide their papers to publishers for free and even perform peer reviews without compensation. However, individuals must pay tens of dollars per paper, and institutions pay millions annually to access these publications. More absurdly, authors often have to pay to access their own papers.
The extreme imbalance between publishers’ actual contributions and revenue distribution exacerbates the problem. The tangible services publishers provide amount to editing and server operation, yet the actual cost of these technical services accounts for only a small fraction of their revenue. The rest is pure “monopoly rent,” an excess profit derived from market dominance. In fact, Elsevier’s operating margin exceeds 30%, comparable to that of Apple or Google, but unlike tech companies, publishers maintain such high profitability without developing innovative products or services.
A more problematic aspect is that such monopolistic positions create a double-charging structure for publicly funded research. Scientists conduct research funded by government budgets, submit their results to publishers for free, and then university libraries—also funded by government budgets—must pay to access the same papers. Ultimately, taxpayers are paying twice for the same research, leading to the fundamental problem of privatizing public knowledge.
This monopoly structure deepens the gap in access to research results, hindering scientific progress itself. Wealthy institutions in developed countries can afford the expensive subscription fees to access the latest research, but researchers in developing countries or independent scholars often struggle to access necessary papers due to financial constraints. This creates an information gap among scientists worldwide, ultimately slowing down humanity’s overall pace of scientific advancement.
1.2. Limitations of the Peer Review System: Problems of Anonymity and Unpaid Labor
In tandem with the monopolistic structure of academic publishing, the current peer review system reveals another structural contradiction. It relies on the unpaid labor of reviewers, while generating enormous profits from the results of that labor. Every year, scientists around the world perform millions of manuscript reviews for free, and without this unpaid labor, the current academic publishing system would collapse instantly. Yet reviewers receive no economic compensation for their crucial contributions.
One of the most serious problems in the current system is the lack of accountability and the prevalence of bias stemming from anonymity. In the anonymous review process, some reviewers deliberately delay the work of competitors or render unfair evaluations based on their own prejudices. Cases in which innovative research that challenges existing paradigms, or papers presenting perspectives different from the mainstream, are unfairly rejected are frequent. Such biases not only undermine the objectivity and fairness of science but also suppress innovative discoveries.
The inefficient review process, which can take anywhere from several months to several years, is an outdated system that does not match the pace of modern scientific progress. Especially in fast-changing technological fields or urgent situations such as pandemics, this slow process can be fatal. A representative example is the COVID-19 pandemic, during which important research results were delayed for months in the traditional review process, preventing timely sharing of crucial information needed for urgent public health responses.
These delays also seriously impact the career development of researchers. Doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers often need to publish papers to move to the next stage in their careers, but the unpredictable review process can significantly disrupt career plans. Furthermore, there are occasional unethical cases in which reviewers deliberately delay a competitor’s paper to publish their own similar research first.
The problem of a limited reviewer pool and lack of expertise is also severe. Because there are only a small number of experts in specific fields, the same reviewers are repeatedly assigned, which restricts the development of that field to a narrow set of perspectives. In the case of new interdisciplinary research or studies employing innovative methodologies, it is often difficult to find reviewers with the proper expertise, leading to inappropriate evaluations.
1.3. The Paradox of the Patent System: Protection of Innovation or Hindrance to Innovation?
If the problems of academic publishing and the peer review system distort the processes of knowledge sharing and verification, the patent system demonstrates a paradoxical structure that, under the pretext of protecting innovation, in fact hinders it. Originally, patents were designed to grant inventors a limited period of exclusivity as an incentive for innovation, in exchange for disclosing their technology to promote the overall advancement of society. However, in reality, the system often produces the opposite result due to complex and opaque examination procedures, excessive costs, and frequent abuse.
The first problem is the complex and opaque examination process. It typically takes two to three years from filing a patent to registration, and the costs incurred during this process can amount to tens of thousands of dollars. More seriously, there is a lack of consistency and predictability in examination outcomes. The same technology can receive completely different decisions depending on the examiner, creating significant uncertainty for individuals or startups developing innovative technologies. This is especially true in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and biotechnology, where it is difficult to properly evaluate inventions under existing examination standards, leading to even more confusion.
The difficulty and cost of proving distinctiveness from prior technologies present another structural limitation of the patent system. To prove that a new invention is distinct from existing technology, one must research all related patents, papers, and public materials worldwide—an undertaking that individuals or small companies can hardly afford. Moreover, due to language and regional barriers, patents are often granted for technologies that have already been disclosed elsewhere, resulting in frequent duplicate patents. These duplicates later become the cause of patent disputes, imposing enormous legal costs on innovative companies.
The emergence of patent trolls who exploit these loopholes highlights the contradictions of the system. Such entities purchase patents without any intention of developing products or advancing technology, and then file lawsuits or demand licensing fees from other companies. This is particularly problematic in the software sector, where overly broad or abstract patents have been granted, leaving virtually all IT companies exposed to the risk of patent infringement. As a result, innovative companies are forced to divert resources from R&D to expanding their legal teams.
The limitations of the patent system also act as a barrier to global technological cooperation. Because each country has different patent laws and examination standards, securing protection for a single technology across multiple countries requires enormous time and cost. This creates a significant obstacle for innovators in developing countries and for developers contributing to open-source projects. Ultimately, the patent system is evolving into a tool that strengthens the vested interests of resource-rich corporations rather than protecting innovation.
2. The New Scientific Research System Proposed by DeSci
2.1. Decentralized Publishing: Researcher-Led Knowledge Sharing
A fundamental solution to the monopolistic structure of the existing academic publishing ecosystem has emerged in the form of researcher-led knowledge sharing systems through decentralized publishing protocols. In this new paradigm, researchers no longer need the approval or permission of a publisher to disseminate their work; they can directly publish their research results on a blockchain network and make them openly accessible to anyone worldwide.
Platforms such as Mirror and Archive are already operating in this way, enabling researchers to issue their papers as NFTs, thereby maintaining complete ownership while ensuring transparent distribution.
The most innovative aspect of this decentralized model is that researchers regain complete ownership and control over their work. In the traditional system, once researchers transferred copyright to publishers, they lost all control over their research.
In contrast, blockchain-based publishing allows researchers to retain perpetual ownership of their work and decide for themselves under what conditions and to whom access is granted, as well as how their work may be used commercially. Furthermore, whenever their research is cited or utilized, they can automatically receive royalties through smart contracts, providing a sustainable economic incentive.
Immediate publication and real-time feedback to accelerate scientific progress is another core value of decentralized publishing. In the traditional publishing process, peer review and final publication could take months or even years, but with blockchain, important research results can be shared with the scientific community within minutes.
In urgent situations such as pandemics or natural disasters, this rapid dissemination of information can make a critical difference in saving lives. Additionally, once a paper is made public, researchers worldwide can provide real-time feedback, significantly enhancing research quality and guiding the direction of follow-up studies.
This open sharing system also introduces the concept of “living papers” through version control and continuous improvement. Just as software on GitHub is continuously updated and improved, research papers can be updated whenever new data or findings become available, ensuring they remain current.
All changes are recorded on the blockchain, making them transparently traceable, and readers can fully understand the evolution of the paper. This represents an innovative shift from the idea of scientific knowledge being static after publication to a dynamic, ever-evolving body of work.
2.2. Token-Based Incentives: Fair Rewards According to Contribution
While decentralized publishing returns autonomy and control to researchers, a token-based incentive system offers a new economic model in which all participants in the scientific ecosystem are fairly rewarded according to their contributions. In the traditional system, only the authors of papers received recognition (and even then, limited), but in the DeSci ecosystem, everyone who contributes—peer reviewers, citizen scientists who provide data, patients participating in studies, and investors who fund research—can receive economic rewards in the form of tokens.
The core of such a token reward system lies in a differentiated incentive structure that accounts for diverse forms of contribution. Instead of simply rewarding the sheer number of papers, greater token rewards go to high-quality research, groundbreaking discoveries, and studies with significant social impact.
Not only paper authorship but also thorough peer review, useful data curation, reproducibility verification, and science communication for the general public are all rewarded with tokens. Even posing good questions or offering constructive criticism is recognized as a valuable contribution to scientific advancement and rewarded accordingly.
Incentives for long-term contributions and anti-speculation mechanisms are essential for the sustainable operation of this token system. Mechanisms such as staking and vesting encourage long-term engagement rather than short-term speculation.
For example, a certain percentage of the tokens earned by a researcher may be gradually released over two to three years, encouraging them to focus on sustained research activities rather than one-off results. Researchers who stake their tokens can also gain higher credibility, leading to more research opportunities and collaboration proposals.
Such tokenomics greatly enhance the global accessibility and diversity of scientific research. In the past, only researchers affiliated with well-funded institutions in wealthy countries could secure sufficient resources, but in a token-based system, any individual or team producing good research—regardless of affiliation—can be rewarded directly. A doctor in Africa providing rare disease data, a biologist in South America discovering a new species, and an engineer in Asia developing innovative technology can all receive immediate token rewards and contribute to the global scientific community.
2.3. Transparent Peer Review: Blockchain-Based Review System
If token incentives provide the economic motivation for scientific participation, a blockchain-based transparent peer review system fundamentally improves the trustworthiness and efficiency of the scientific verification process. To address the bias and lack of accountability in the existing anonymous review system, the new system records all review activities on the blockchain, making them transparently traceable while still maintaining an appropriate level of privacy. Reviewers can remain anonymous yet build a reputation score based on the quality of their reviews, which in turn leads to more opportunities to review important papers and to receive higher token rewards.
The most innovative aspect of this transparency-based system is that the review process itself is recognized as an academic contribution. In the past, reviews served only as a gatekeeping function to decide whether a paper would be published, but in the new system, a high-quality review is treated as a scientific asset in its own right.
Comprehensive reviews—including detailed examinations of methodologies, assessments of statistical validity, suggestions for additional experiments, and comparisons with related literature—are valuable resources for other researchers. Reviewers providing such contributions receive separate token rewards. This creates a virtuous cycle that simultaneously raises the quality of reviews and encourages active reviewer participation.
Real-time review and continuous feedback mechanisms transform the traditional slow and closed review process into a dynamic and open one. As soon as a paper is published, not only experts but also any interested researchers can provide immediate feedback. Such feedback is weighted according to importance and credibility, contributing to an overall evaluation score. Authors can improve their papers in real time based on this feedback, and reviewers who provide the most valuable input receive additional token rewards. This makes scientific verification an ongoing process rather than a one-time event.
The new review system also incorporates algorithmic measures to prevent bias and enhance diversity. An AI-powered reviewer matching system identifies the experts most suited to a paper’s topic and methodology while considering regional, gender, and age diversity to create a balanced reviewer pool. Furthermore, an AI system detects bias in review content, filtering out clearly unreasonable or discriminatory evaluations. Reviewers who produce such biased reviews see their reputation scores decrease. This is a new technical approach to ensuring scientific objectivity and fairness.
Post-verification of review quality and continuous learning mechanisms further strengthen this transparent review ecosystem. After a paper is published, the system tracks its real-world impact and how subsequent research evaluates it, thereby assessing the accuracy of the initial reviews. Reviewers whose assessments proved accurate and whose suggestions were valuable accumulate long-term reputation, while those who consistently made poor judgments gradually lose opportunities to review significant papers. This feedback loop acts as a self-evolving mechanism that continuously improves the overall quality of the review system.
3. DeSci Application Scenarios by Field
3.1. Innovation in Medical Research: A Patient-Centered Research Ecosystem
If DeSci’s transparent review system revolutionizes scientific verification, in the medical field it is building a completely new ecosystem in which patients become the main agents of research and receive fair compensation for providing their data. In traditional medical research, patients were merely subjects who provided data, but on DeSci platforms, they can tokenize their medical data as NFTs, directly manage it, and trade it. Genetic information of patients with rare diseases, treatment progress records, and responses to specific medications become valuable digital assets that can be sold directly to pharmaceutical companies or research institutions, with patients receiving ongoing royalties.
The most innovative aspect of this patient-centered model is that clinical trial participants share in the profits resulting from research outcomes. In traditional trials, participants took risks and invested time yet received only a small participation fee. In a tokenized system, if a new drug developed from their data succeeds, they receive continuous revenue sharing. Through smart contracts, a fixed percentage of sales revenue from the new drug is automatically distributed to trial participants, recognizing them as research partners rather than mere subjects. This boosts participation rates in clinical trials, enables the collection of more diverse patient data, and ultimately leads to the development of better treatments.
Royalties for individuals contributing to medical AI development further expand this patient-centered ecosystem. Everyday health data collected through smartwatches or health apps can be used to train medical AI algorithms, and data providers receive tokens for their contributions. Furthermore, whenever the trained AI is used in real-world healthcare settings for diagnosis or treatment and generates revenue, micro-royalties are paid to the original data providers. This represents a paradigm shift in which personal health data is no longer a free raw material for corporations but a recognized asset with legitimate economic value.
This new model of medical research also helps bridge global healthcare gaps and enables the development of personalized treatments. Patients in developing countries can contribute their medical data to a global research network and receive economic rewards, enabling the accumulation of medical knowledge without regional limitations. In particular, research on diseases or genetic traits specific to certain regions is activated, promoting the development of treatments for previously neglected patient groups. At the same time, patients gain access to the treatment experiences and data of others with similar characteristics, helping them find more personalized and effective treatment options.
3.2. Democratization of Climate Science: Tokenizing Citizen Science
If patients become the main actors in research in the medical field, in climate science a new model is emerging where citizens around the world become key participants in collecting and monitoring climate data. Traditionally, official climate data was collected only by government agencies or university weather stations, but through DeSci platforms, temperature, humidity, air quality, and precipitation data measured by personal sensors or smartphone apps can all have economic value.
Data such as soil temperature measured by farmers in their fields, altitude-based temperature changes recorded by hikers, and observations of sea-level rise by coastal residents all become valuable scientific contributions rewarded with tokens.
The core of this tokenized citizen science model is a differentiated reward system based on the quality and reliability of data. Rather than simply rewarding the quantity of data provided, citizens who consistently perform accurate and reliable measurements receive more tokens.
An AI system cross-verifies personal data with nearby official observation stations to assess accuracy, and participants who maintain high reliability over time are gradually given higher weighting. In addition, citizens who detect and report unusual weather events or environmental changes early receive bonus tokens, enabling the network to serve as a global early warning system for climate monitoring.
Rewarding citizens for participating in environmental monitoring extends beyond data collection to encompass all kinds of environmental protection activities. Actions such as collecting plastic waste, planting trees, conserving energy, and using eco-friendly transportation are recorded in verifiable forms and rewarded with tokens.
For example, smartphone GPS and cameras can be used to verify waste collection activities, or smart meters can automatically record energy-saving achievements, quantifying each individual’s environmental contribution. These tokens go beyond simple rewards, linking to carbon credits with real economic value, thereby greatly enhancing citizens’ motivation to protect the environment.
This democratized climate science ecosystem also creates a new research model of crowdfunding and sharing the results of climate studies. Token holders can directly invest in climate research projects based on citizen-collected data, and when research outcomes lead to policy changes or technological innovations, the profits are shared.
For example, if a study analyzing fine dust patterns in a specific region leads to the development of new air purification technology or to government policy changes, the citizens who provided the data and those who invested in the research all share in the results. This ensures that climate science becomes not the domain of a few experts, but a collective intelligence in which all citizens can participate and benefit.
3.3. Open-Source Software: Quantifying Developer Contributions
If citizen contributions in climate science are rewarded with tokens, in the software development field a new ecosystem is emerging in which all developers contributing to open-source projects receive ongoing economic rewards proportionate to their contributions. In the traditional open-source ecosystem, developers contributed code for free, while large corporations commercially utilized that code to generate massive profits, creating a persistent imbalance.
Through DeSci platforms, however, every code contribution is recorded on the blockchain, and whenever that code is used in other projects or leads to commercial success, royalties are automatically distributed to the original contributors.
The core of this contribution-quantifying system is a differentiated reward mechanism based on code quality and impact. Evaluation is not based merely on the number of lines of code, but on how widely the code is reused in other projects, how critical the functionality it provides is, and how few bugs it contains.
An AI system automatically analyzes aspects such as code complexity, optimization, security, and reusability, while incorporating peer reviews from fellow developers and usage patterns to quantify the value of each contribution. Developers who create core libraries or frameworks frequently referenced or forked by others receive continuous high rewards.
Compensating developers for open-source software used by corporations is one of the most innovative aspects of this new model. When large companies use open-source libraries or frameworks in their products, smart contracts automatically distribute a portion of their revenue to the contributors of those open-source projects.
For example, whenever Google or Meta uses a particular open-source AI library in their services, the developers of that library receive royalties proportional to its scale of use. This transforms open-source development from a charitable activity into a sustainable economic pursuit.
This economic incentive system also creates a sustainable funding model for open-source projects. Communities can place token bounties on specific feature developments or bug fixes, with the developer who successfully completes the task receiving the reward.
Additionally, individuals or companies wishing to invest in the long-term success of a project can purchase its tokens to support developers and receive a return if the project succeeds. This introduces healthy market mechanisms into the open-source ecosystem, encouraging the creation of more high-quality software and allowing developers to focus on innovative projects without financial concerns.
4. The Technological Infrastructure Supporting DeSci Protocols
4.1. Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS): A User Interface that Hides Complexity
For patients in medical research, citizen scientists in climate science, and open-source developers to all participate in the DeSci ecosystem and enjoy economic benefits, it is essential to have a user interface that allows them to use the system easily without being conscious of complex blockchain technology.
This is where Wallet-as-a-Service plays a key role in bridging DeSci and everyday users. Whether a researcher is minting a paper as an NFT, a patient is tokenizing their medical data, or a citizen scientist is receiving rewards for environmental data, they can enjoy the same convenience as using a regular app—without having to understand concepts such as private keys, gas fees, or blockchain networks.
The most important innovation of WaaS is the complete simplification of blockchain wallet creation and management through social login. For example, a patient wanting to participate in medical research no longer needs to memorize a seed phrase or securely store a private key; simply logging in with a Google or Apple account automatically generates and manages their wallet in the background.
Likewise, a citizen who wants to provide climate data or a developer who wants to contribute to open source can use all services without any knowledge of blockchain or private keys. This seamless onboarding experience plays a decisive role in popularizing the DeSci ecosystem, drawing in countless potential participants who were previously excluded due to technical entry barriers.
Integrated multi-chain asset management is another key value offered by WaaS. Currently, various DeSci services are spread across multiple blockchains—such as Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana—forcing users to manage separate wallets and prepare gas fees for each chain.
With WaaS, users can manage tokens earned from medical research, rewards from climate data contributions, and royalties from open-source contributions—all in a single interface. Without having to worry about which chain their tokens are on, how much gas fees cost, or how to bridge assets, WaaS automatically finds the optimal route and processes transactions.
This technical abstraction also enables natural connections between different fields within the DeSci ecosystem. Tokens earned from participating in medical research can be invested in climate research, or rewards from open-source contributions can be used to purchase medical data—without complex technical processes, just with a few simple clicks.
Users can enjoy all the benefits of the DeSci ecosystem without even realizing they are interacting with complex DeFi protocols across multiple blockchains. This plays a key role in making DeSci an inclusive ecosystem in which everyone—not just tech experts—can participate.
4.2. Governance Tokens: Democratic Management of the Scientific Community
While WaaS improves accessibility to the DeSci ecosystem, democratic decision-making through governance tokens provides a social mechanism to ensure that such an innovative ecosystem is operated fairly and transparently.
In the traditional scientific ecosystem, a small number of journal editors or institutional executives made all the key decisions. In DeSci, however, all participants who create real value—such as medical research participants, climate data providers, and open-source developers—can directly shape the future of the ecosystem through governance tokens. This goes beyond simple user surveys, representing an actual decentralization of economic power and realizing true scientific democracy.
The most direct impact of governance tokens appears in establishing fair rules through democratic adjustment of protocol parameters. For example, decisions such as adjusting the token reward ratio for patient data in a medical research platform, changing the data quality evaluation criteria for citizen scientists in a climate science platform, or improving contribution calculation algorithms in an open-source platform are all made through token-holder voting. Each token holder’s voting power is proportional to the number of tokens they own and their contribution to the ecosystem. When a proposed change receives the required percentage of approval, it is automatically implemented via smart contracts.
This democratic governance system works effectively by balancing expertise and participation through delegated voting. Since not every token holder has sufficient knowledge to make complex technical decisions, they can delegate their voting rights to trusted experts or organizations.
For example, in a medical platform, privacy-related policies can be delegated to privacy experts; in a climate platform, data verification algorithms can be delegated to climate scientists; and in an open-source platform, code quality evaluation standards can be delegated to senior developers. This hybrid model combines the advantages of direct and representative democracy, enabling general users to participate without burden while ensuring that expert judgment is reflected in specialized decisions.
The alignment of token holders’ economic incentives with the long-term development of the ecosystem is the core mechanism that ensures healthy governance. Since token holders directly benefit from the success of the DeSci platform through increased token value, they have a strong incentive to make decisions that promote long-term growth rather than short-term gains.
For instance, governance token holders in a medical platform may support policies that guarantee higher returns to patients, as this will attract more high-quality medical data and increase the overall value of the platform in the long run. Conversely, poor decisions that harm the platform will also devalue their tokens, motivating careful and responsible voting behavior.
4.3. Interoperability: Connecting the Research Ecosystem
While democratic governance through governance tokens ensures fairness within individual DeSci platforms, interoperability creates an integrated ecosystem in which different DeSci platforms can be combined like Lego blocks to generate greater value.
Currently, medical research, climate science, and open-source development are conducted in separate domains, but through interoperability, these fields can be connected to produce synergies.
For example, climate data from an environmental platform can be combined with health data from a medical platform to study the impact of climate change on human health, or open-source developers’ algorithms can be integrated with patient medical data to advance medical AI development.
The key to this cross-platform connection is the free movement of assets and the sharing of data. Tokens earned from participating in medical research can be invested in climate research projects, and reputation gained from open-source contributions can be used as a trust credential in medical data transactions.
Furthermore, AI models developed on one platform can be trained with data from another, with resulting benefits distributed fairly among all contributors. This allows interdisciplinary research and fusion innovation to flourish while maintaining the strengths of each specialized domain.
A unified researcher identity and reputation system unlocks deeper value in interoperability. Through a Decentralized Identity (DID) system, a researcher’s data quality scores in a medical platform, measurement accuracy in a climate platform, and code contributions in an open-source platform can all be aggregated into a single reputation profile.
This removes the need to rebuild trust from scratch when joining a new DeSci service, as all past scientific contributions are evaluated collectively, enabling better opportunities and conditions. Researchers are no longer tied to a single platform and can freely choose the optimal environment for their work.
Such an integrated ecosystem maximizes the network effects of global scientific knowledge. Discoveries in the medical field can be instantly applied to related climate studies or software development, and algorithms developed in open-source projects can drive breakthroughs in healthcare or climate science.
Moreover, assets and data can move freely between different blockchain networks, allowing the creation of optimal DeSci services by combining the strengths of each chain. Hybrid DeSci applications may leverage Ethereum’s security, Solana’s speed, and Polygon’s low fees, while users enjoy an optimal experience without even being aware of the underlying chains.
Ultimately, this interoperability ensures that all scientific knowledge and innovation worldwide are connected into a vast network, providing the foundation for solving humanity’s complex challenges through collective intelligence.
5. Challenges of DeSci and the Future of the New Scientific Ecosystem
Despite the innovative vision that DeSci presents, several challenges must be overcome before such a fundamental transformation can be realized in practice. Resistance from the existing academic establishment is one of the largest obstacles. Researchers who have relied for decades on the impact factors of traditional journals such as Nature and Science will not easily transition to blockchain-based publishing. It will take considerable time before papers published on DeSci platforms are recognized in promotion and tenure evaluations, and traditional publishers, whose business models are threatened, will resist in various ways.
Regulatory uncertainty and technological maturity are also key challenges. It remains unclear how governments in different countries will apply tax laws to token rewards, or how storing medical data on a blockchain will align with personal data protection laws. Furthermore, current blockchain infrastructure still has limitations in scalability and user experience to support simultaneous participation by scientists worldwide. The sustainability of token economics is another important consideration; incentive structures must be designed to prioritize long-term value creation over short-term speculation, while minimizing the negative impact of token price volatility on research activities.
Nevertheless, the fundamental value proposition of DeSci suggests that these obstacles will eventually be overcome. An economy in which patients earn directly from their medical data, citizen scientists receive economic rewards for environmental protection activities, and open-source developers are paid royalties tied to corporate success is clearly fairer and more efficient than the existing system. Initially, a small number of forward-thinking researchers and institutions will adopt DeSci, and as they demonstrate better results and economic benefits, adoption will gradually spread.
A new model of global scientific collaboration will be DeSci’s greatest achievement. Beyond the barriers of borders, institutions, and language, all knowledge and data worldwide will be connected into a unified network, enabling humanity to solve complex problems through collective intelligence. Researchers in developing countries will have opportunities equal to those in advanced nations, citizen scientists’ everyday observations will lead to major scientific discoveries, and every individual will be able to contribute to scientific progress—and receive fair compensation—for their knowledge, data, and even daily activities, realizing a complete scientific democracy.
This transformation will go beyond mere technological innovation to fundamentally change the nature of science itself. Transparent, reproducible, and open-to-all science will become the new standard, restoring public trust in science and dramatically accelerating the pace of innovation. Ultimately, DeSci will become a core driving force in building a fairer, more transparent, and more inclusive knowledge society.
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