Join Bitcoin Science

#BitcoinScience has the power to be more democratic and inclusive: anyone can be a scientist!

Academia was ‘invented’ after the Second World War. In his work “Science, the Endless Frontier,” Vannevar Bush, building on the success of science centralization in institutions during the 19th century and the Manhattan Project in the 20th century, created a model for basic science leading to technology development. He established the National Science Foundation, which was then emulated globally. However, the system Bush created to simplify the lives of scientists and stimulate scientific discovery backfired. The poorly designed incentives led to a crony system that stifles scientific discovery rather than promoting it. With a funding scheme that required trust in scientists to self-regulate, he intended to improve academia but ended up creating FIAT science.

The failure of the system can be observed in two emblematic publications by John Ioannidis: his notorious 2005 article “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” and the 2017 “A Manifesto for Reproducible Science.”

Nevertheless, academia grew strong to the point of being mistaken for science itself, as if science could only be performed within the system of institutions, peer review, grants, funding agencies, and tenure.

For scientists, the system is so intertwined with their lives that escape seems impossible. And I’m afraid it can’t be reformed: we must exit. Today, more than 75 years later, we can do better. More than decentralized science (#DeSci), we can do #BitcoinScience.

Bitcoin Can Save Science by Aligning It with Societal Values

Ioannidis once personally told me that any successful endeavor requires two components: excellence and a competitive differential. Additionally, it demands two other elements with a high opportunity cost: time and money (which can be seen as a proxy for energy). By integrating the philosophy of Bitcoin into science, we can reconcile all of these elements.

It is actually very simple to execute: we crowdfund research projects with Bitcoin. (The minimalist version of it being a tweet with 140 characters of explanation and an image of a Bitcoin address QR code). When we do so, two very important things happen:

Democratized Decision-Making:

We provide anyone and everyone the ability to vote and decide whether a project has a competitive differential and excellence.

By eliminating the gatekeepers of the grant system, the entire structure of flawed incentives in science collapses. For instance, the gatekeepers of scientific publications automatically lose their power, as do tenure committees. Suddenly, the ability to communicate clearly and a solid track record become more important than status and hierarchy.

Projects are selected based on their direct benefits to funders: participation in intellectual property (e.g., molecule.dao), early access to cures or medicines, or simply acknowledgment.

In 2012, we managed to crowdfund the genome sequencing of a mussel, naming genes after our backers. Had we crowdfunded in Bitcoin, we could still be sequencing genomes today.

#DeSci before #DeSci Rio: 10 yrs of the #GoldenMussel #Genome #crowdfunding in 2023. Lessons? DeSci is about #community building: telling the STORY in a way that EVERYONE understand and REDUCES #information asymmetry. https://t.co/Vqa3HJlGLx w/ @MahUliano @jujuam84 juliaback_com

— tagomago | Mauro Rebelo (@tagomago_me) March 22, 2023

Increased Time Preference:

Suddenly, your budget doesn’t get depleted, and the rush to spend vanishes. With a long-term perspective, you gain the ability to answer more complex questions that require time. A Bitcoin trust can continue indefinitely, funding personnel, resources, and services.

Accounting becomes automated and fully transparent, reducing overhead costs and freeing scientists to do what they do best: research.

Transdisciplinary science, such as climate research, geoengineering, and biodiversity conservation, can be conducted over long periods, minimizing the challenges of replication or control conditions.

Data goes on-chain, and suddenly it doesn’t matter where you publish. Others can check and verify your data. The peer review system is no longer limited to three reviewers: everyone can verify your data and validate your conclusions. See the FAIR principles.

#Bitcoin Science	#FIAT Science
Liquid democracy: Society uses Bitcoin to vote on research projects.	Grant committees often decide research topics based on their own interests.
Crowdfund within the Bitcoin community. With a stable budget, you can focus on long-term goals.	Short-term focus can lead to rushed publishing and an emphasis on quantity over quality.
Bitcoin budgets grow over time, allowing for more research.	Grants must be spent quickly due to inflation, according to agency rules, regardless of project needs.
Blockchain manages financial transactions. Accounting is automatic, immediate, and transparent. The private key owner is responsible.	Grant reporting is bureaucratic and opaque, with lots of admin and financial work.
Evidence guides when you publish. You publish when you have something new, not when a grant needs renewal.	Pressure to “publish or perish” can lead to rushed conclusions and fragmented articles.
You have ample time for research. You act on information, not on a schedule.	Bureaucracy and grant deadlines often limit your research time.
Long-term focus lets you study what matters, not just what’s trending.	Trends, buzz, and grant applications often decide your research topic.

Trustless Science

The world, including academia and venture capital firms, has a strong bias towards familiarity because it is a proxy for trust, forged over time by consistency and integrity. In Bitcoin Science, crypto history can help build trust for more people, at a distance in time and space. With trust comes capital, independence, responsibility, and, with some luck too, impact.

To fully benefit from the opportunities that Bitcoin and blockchain offer to science, we could adapt the traditional view of the scientific method (without prejudice to it). I call it Scientific Method 2.0, an approach that is a mix of research and business development.

#ScientificMethod 2.0:
1- Find PROBLEM impacting lots of PEOPLE
2- Find #incentives to ALL STAKEHOLDERS
3- SCRUTINIZE idea
4- Build DAOs to A/B test #GameTheory schemes
5- Measure adoption + output
6- Chose scheme & Build Co.
7- Solve problem! #science #business #innovation

— tagomago | Mauro Rebelo (@tagomago_me) April 26, 2022

Create a Bitcoin crowdfund for a scientific project, start building a crypto portfolio, a crypto history that can be verified, and see your crypto reputation emerge.

Join Bitcoin Science.