DeSci

TL;DR

DeSci applies tokenomics to funding biomedical research or using incentives to target specific communities/indications. It’s most useful for funding underserved areas of science, collecting data, and being more capital efficient.

Companies

Compound portfolio companies HairDAO and Molecule

ResearchHub, BIO Launchpad, AthenaDAO, VitaDAO, QuantumBioDAO, Pump.Science, DermaDAO, PsyDAO

Overview

For deep dive on how to build companies in DeSci see our breakdown, but broadly DeSci is broadly most useful for:

• Funding fruitful areas that traditional pharma won’t (e.g. hair loss for example, which the NIH classifies as cosmetic and so is habitually underfunded). HairDAO in bringing the first new hormonal hair loss drug to market in over 20 years. It enables a far more direct 1:1 connection with the end population affected and even enables the patient population to help fund their own research. Other examples where traditional pharma funding is lacking include orphan drugs and women’s health.
• Coordinating resources in a more cost efficient way via rewarding early nodes with token emissions (e.g. Metanova is neutral to the cost of compute)
• Targeting specific indications or patient cohorts in a global, distributed manner. Rare disease is one example of this, but any types of studies or testing that can benefit meaningfully from very defined patient cohorts could use crypto incentives to move quicker and more efficiently.
• Enabling arbitrarily small slivers of IP ownership at no extra cost. If successful milestones are hit, the proceeds can than be distributed to token holders. This broadens the pool of investors able to own IP away from only large-scale institutions to anyone, potentially lowering the cost of capital
• It candidly opens up biomedical funding to the increasingly gamified, memified, and financialized world that have overcome other markets. Companies early to take advantage of this enjoy a far lower cost of capital because the level of sophistication of these types of speculators is incomparably less than biotech venture & hedge funds. Leveraging this advantage allows teams to potentially create a structural advantage over traditional companies. Ultimately though, this capital advantage needs to be converted into tangible benefits but it allows for more experimentation which might otherwise go untested in traditional markets.

To illustrate the relative ease of crypto capital markets, dig into the top DeSci projects as listed below. Compare what their tech stack to the scientific demonstrations of clinical stage biotechs trading at similar valuations. Many of these projects would struggle to be funded in traditional markets and would be valued at a fraction of where they trade today on crypto markets. Founders who thoughtfully merge the two worlds can raise greater sums while enjoying far less dilution.

Possible places to start: biosecurity, more livestreaming experiments, doing decentralized experiments on hormone maxing (testosterone and progesterone), betting on experimental outcomes, creating biobanks of consumer samples, and so much more. Science-based cosmetics is also a uniquely interesting space in our view.

As crypto markets are currently still more story-driven than traditional markets, companies building here should consider crafting the narrative they hope to create.

We have further insights we’d love to share directly. If you’re thinking about this model please reach us at [email protected] and [email protected]!

Further Reading

https://www.metanova-labs.ai/whitepapers

Decentralized Wearables

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382370008_Decentralized_science_DeSci_definition_shared_values_and_guiding_principles

https://www.michaeldempsey.me/blog/2025/10/03/sequencing-vs-equal-odds-applied-research/

Value Capture — 3

• Thus far the value capture mechanisms are underexplored in our view. Part of this has been a regulatory grey area that left teams in limbo, but part of it is also the nascency of the space more broadly. We still think there is a lot of design space to be explored here, especially given how wide the aperture is for company-building (i.e. everything from rare disease research to cosmetic DTC brands)

Moat — 5

• There’s potentially massive moats that can be built here. Given the challenges we see on the traditional science side, it’s more likely than not (in our opinion) that we see completely new types of science-first technology companies birthed from a more decentralized approach. Tapping into broader, more diverse but easily-targeted groups is just not something traditional science companies are able to do at-scale today.