Decentralized Science
March 30, 2022
Updated
July 16, 2025

5 Decentralized Science (DeSci) Projects Revolutionizing Scientific Research and Development

By:
Drew Simon
Discover how Decentralized Science (DeSci) is transforming research funding, IP, and collaboration. Explore 5 leading DeSci projects—VitaDAO, Molecule, AthenaDAO, Bio Protocol, and DeSci Labs—driving open science, equity, and innovation through Web3. A must-read for scientists, funders, and Web3 enthusiasts interested in leveraging crypto and blockchain to advance science.

Scientific research is the engine of human progress, but for decades, it's been throttled by inefficiencies, high costs, and gatekeeping. Access to funding is limited, breakthroughs are locked behind expensive paywalls, and researchers often face rigid institutional silos that stifle innovation.

Decentralized Science (DeSci) is changing that.

By combining blockchain technology with Web3 principles and crypto rails, DeSci is reimagining how scientific research is funded, governed, and shared. It empowers scientists and communities to co-create open, transparent ecosystems where research can thrive outside traditional constraints. From decentralized funding platforms and IP marketplaces to community-governed labs and DAOs for biomedical innovation, DeSci is offering new paths for scientific discovery that are faster, fairer, and more collaborative.

Whether you're a scientist, investor, or science enthusiast, these five projects show how DeSci is unlocking a new future for research.

1. Molecule – A Web3 Marketplace for Scientific Intellectual Property

Molecule is at the heart of the DeSci movement, providing the infrastructure that allows researchers to tokenize and license their intellectual property (IP). Its platform connects scientists with DAOs, funders, and patient communities, transforming early-stage research into investable, liquid assets.

With hundreds of research projects listed and partnerships with initiatives like VitaDAO, AthenaDAO, and ValleyDAO, Molecule offers a new way to fund science from the ground up. Researchers can mint IP-NFTs (intellectual property non-fungible tokens) representing the rights to their discoveries, enabling fractionalized ownership, transparent licensing, and new funding models beyond traditional grants.

Check out our interview with Benji Liebowitz, COO at Molecule where we dive deeper into their mission and vision for the future of science.

2. AthenaDAO – Decentralized R&D for Women’s Health

AthenaDAO is a community-governed collective advancing women’s health research, an area historically underfunded and underprioritized in mainstream biomedical R&D. By leveraging Web3 tools, AthenaDAO empowers researchers to raise funds, collaborate openly, and generate new IP centered on female-centric health innovations.

Working in partnership with Molecule and other DeSci infrastructure providers, AthenaDAO has funded promising early-stage research in areas like endometriosis, fertility, and hormonal health. Its mission is not only to fund new science but to build a global community advocating for equity in research through transparent, decentralized collaboration.

Check out our interview with AthenaDAO’s Founder Laura Minquini where we explore how they are levelling the playing field for women’s health research with Web3.

3. Bio Protocol – The DeSci Operating System

Bio Protocol is building the foundational rails for the decentralized bioeconomy. It provides a modular framework for launching BioDAOs, which are decentralized communities focused on specific areas of life science research. Each BioDAO can customize tools for governance, funding, IP management, and research collaboration, all underpinned by interoperable smart contracts.

Think of Bio Protocol as the operating system of DeSci. It offers the backend infrastructure to support the proliferation of niche scientific DAOs, whether focused on neurotech, cancer research, plant biology, or synthetic biology. By standardizing how scientific DAOs operate, Bio Protocol is helping scale decentralized R&D across diverse disciplines.

4. VitaDAO – Pioneering Longevity Research with Community-Owned Biotech

One of the most established names in DeSci, VitaDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) funding cutting-edge research in longevity and healthspan extension. By leveraging DAO-based governance and tokenized participation, VitaDAO democratizes access to biomedical R&D, turning the traditional biotech model on its head.

Community members contribute funding, IP, and expertise in exchange for VITA tokens, which give them a voice in research prioritization. With over $10M in funding deployed and dozens of projects in its portfolio, VitaDAO has become a global hub for decentralized longevity science. It also plays a pivotal role in spinning out research into biotech startups, supported by its growing network of BioDAOs.

5. DeSci Labs – Making Web3 Science-Ready

DeSci Labs is building Web3-native tools that integrate seamlessly into researchers’ workflows, from project creation and IP protection to funding and publishing. The platform offers tools to mint Research Object NFTs (RO-NFTs), a way to formalize and timestamp scientific outputs on-chain. This enables researchers to establish provenance and secure attribution from the moment of discovery.

With its modular research publishing stack, DeSci Labs also enables scientists to build transparent, immutable scientific records without relying on traditional journals. This shift not only boosts reproducibility but reduces reliance on costly intermediaries. DeSci Labs is currently working on cross-platform integrations with Molecule, Open Science frameworks, and public data repositories to ensure full interoperability across the DeSci ecosystem.

The Road Ahead for DeSci

Decentralized Science is still in its early days, but its potential is enormous. By removing friction from the research lifecycle, from ideation to funding to publication, DeSci enables faster discovery, better incentives, and more equitable access to science. It invites anyone, whether they are scientists, citizens, investors, or patient advocates, to take part in shaping the future of knowledge.

As more projects enter the space, the infrastructure is maturing, communities are growing, and the vision of a borderless, democratized research ecosystem is becoming more tangible by the day.

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