Crypto Crafters

The scientific research process faces major hurdles, especially in converting basic research into real-world applications through translational research. The “Valley of Death” results in 80-90% of research projects failing before reaching human trials, with only 0.1% of drug candidates becoming approved treatments.

Misaligned incentives among academia, funding organizations, and industry exacerbate issues like insufficient funding, weak collaboration between scientists and clinicians, and poor reproducibility, causing many projects to fail. But, decentralized science could be the answer to these inefficiencies.

Addressing ‘Valley of Death’

According to Binance Research, Decentralized Science (DeSci) leverages Web3 technologies to reshape the research model. Its latest report revealed that blockchains offer a trustless mechanism for coordinating funding and provide a transparent, immutable system for tracking progress while aligning stakeholder interests.

The key areas, such as lack of funding, reduced collaboration between scientists and clinicians, and poor replicability and reproducibility of scientific findings, can be tackled by DeSci.

For instance, DeSci can address funding gaps by utilizing Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) as a capital formation mechanism. DAOs unite patients, researchers, and investors with aligned goals of advancing research to the clinical stage and eventual commercialization. As such, transparent decision-making is enabled through token governance, with smart contracts enforcing funding milestones, tokenizing intellectual property, and distributing fractional ownership to participants.

This new sector can address reduced collaboration by creating DAOs where researchers and clinicians align on research goals and outcomes from the start. IP tokenization rewards both parties fairly, while incentivized peer review systems encourage clinicians to offer early input. On-chain reputation systems highlight contributions, boosting trust and collaboration across the scientific community.

DeSci can also improve reproducibility by using blockchain to log research methods transparently and make experiments easier to replicate. Web3 platforms allow the open sharing of all results, including failed studies, and address publication bias. Meanwhile, decentralized storage ensures data safety, faster retrieval, and better collaboration, increasing trust in scientific findings.

DeSci Projections

Despite its potential, DeSci remains in its infancy, with a market cap of $1.75 billion across 57 projects on CoinGecko – relatively small compared to DeFAI at $2.7 billion, with 41 projects and the broader crypto AI market valued at $47 billion.

“To sum it up, decentralized science is already mature enough to impact the way scientific research is being conducted today. While there are some gaps and challenges in the current landscape, tackling the “Valley of Death” in research is already a huge step forward.”

TL;DR

• The SEC doubled down on its appeal against the 2023 ruling favoring Ripple, while the non-profit organization Better Markets sided with the regulator, arguing that XRP is a security.
• With pro-crypto Mark Uyeda replacing Gary Gensler at the SEC, analysts speculate on potential outcomes that could favor Ripple.

The Tussle Goes on

While the lawsuit between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) started in 2020, its final resolution remains to be seen. The past few years were quite eventful, with numerous developments and partial court wins that seemingly tipped the scales in favor of the company.

The first month of the new year also offered some key updates. In mid-January, the securities regulator officially filed its first opening brief as part of its appeal against a court decision concerning the XRP sold on exchanges years ago. It also insisted (once again) that Ripple’s native token should be classified as a security. A week later, Ripple requested a due date of April 16, 2025, for its brief. 

The SEC’s appeal concerns Judge Torres’ ruling from August 2023 when she found that the firm’s programmatic sales of XRP to retail clients through centralized exchanges did not breach the rules. 

And while the crypto industry has largely sided with Ripple in the lawsuit, some financial entities have voiced support for the Commission. On January 22, the non-profit organization Better Markets categorized XRP as a security.

“The XRP tokens sold by Ripple Labs, Inc. (“Ripple”) are investment contract securities regardless of whether investors acquired them directly from Ripple or indirectly on secondary trading platforms.

And they are investment contracts regardless of the purchasers’ level of sophistication. In all cases, investors were led to expect profits from the efforts of others, thus satisfying the third prong of the Howey test for investment contracts,” the brief reads. 

Gensler’s Departure

An important event that may impact the Ripple v. SEC case is Gary Gensler’s resignation as a Chairman of the watchdog. He stepped down on January 20 (the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration) and was replaced by the pro-crypto Mark Uyeda. 

Gensler was considered a huge enemy of the crypto sector, and the XRP army interpreted the shifts in the SEC’s leadership as something that could lead to a potentially favorable resolution for Ripple. 

One person who presented three possible outcome scenarios following the changes is the American attorney John Deaton. First, he assumed that the SEC might stand by its appeal, thus prolonging the battle indefinitely.

Second, he suggested that the regulator could dismiss the plea and insist that Ripple pay the previously ruled penalty of $125 million. Last summer, Judge Torres ordered the company to settle the amount due to violating certain rules. Some of the company’s execs were more than happy to abide by the rules, considering that the fine represented just a fraction of the $2 billion the SEC initially asked for. 

Deaton concluded that the third (most unlikely) scenario includes dismissing the appeal and scrapping the multi-million penalty.