In mid-November, within just a few days, RIF and URO experienced an astonishing thousandfold surge, followed by a correction phase in the DeSci market. Notably, URO made a strong rebound last weekend, with gains approaching 200%. This raises the question: what exactly is the platform pump.science behind this surge? Additionally, what role does Molecule, the team behind both pump.science and the Bio Protocol, play in this ecosystem?

What is Molecule?

Molecule aims to advance scientific research through democratized funding and IP tokenization, turning intellectual property into liquid on-chain assets. By aligning incentives between researchers and funders, it seeks to foster a more collaborative and efficient ecosystem for scientific research.

Molecule focuses on three key modules: Catalyst, a platform for equitable issuance of scientific projects; Bio, a bottom-up DeSci financial layer; and Pump.science, a platform for barrier-free scientific experiments and fundraising. These modules address infrastructure, financial layers, and the bridge between research projects and users.

In terms of background, Molecule completed a $13 million seed funding round in June 2022, led by Northpond Ventures, with participation from Backed VC, Shine Capital, Speedinvest, and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan. In December 2023, Molecule secured an additional $1 million investment from Sora Ventures. As mentioned in “DeSci Gold Rush | Industry Leader VitaDAO: How Does It Lead Longevity Research?“ Paul Kohlhaas, author of the VitaDAO whitepaper, is also the founder and CEO of DeSci projects Molecule and BIO Protocol and has previously worked at Consensys. Tyler Golato is the co-founder of VitaDAO, Molecule, and BIO Protocol.

Catalyst: A Fair Issuance Platform for Scientific Projects

Catalyst is one of Molecule’s core platforms, enabling the tokenization and issuance of intellectual property (IP) through IP-NFTs and IP Tokens (IPTs). To understand Catalyst, it’s essential to first grasp Molecule’s IP-NFTs and IPTs. An IP-NFT bundles the potential intellectual property of a research project into a single NFT. This IP-NFT can then be tokenized into IP Tokens (the governance tokens of the IP-NFT), decentralizing IP ownership directly to individuals (IP Token holders) while raising funds. Holders of these tokens gain partial governance rights over the IP.

Specifically, IP-NFTs integrate two legal agreements with a smart contract to enable on-chain registration and management of IP and research data rights. IPTs represent partial governance rights over the generated IP. Holders of IPTs have governance rights, access to updates on research and development progress, and detailed reports but are not entitled to guaranteed financial returns or revenue sharing from the commercialization of these assets. \
Through Catalyst, funding is provided by contributing ETH to projects on the Base network, with pricing determined by a bonding curve. Once a project reaches its funding target, a negotiation phase begins, lasting up to 12 weeks. During this phase, the funds are locked in the project’s wallet. Upon successful completion, the project’s IP-NFT is minted, and IP Tokens are issued. If the crowdfunding is successful, contributors receive a proportional allocation of IPTs. Notably, purchased IP Tokens and any surplus ETH contributions are subject to a lock-up period before release. \
If a project fails to meet its funding goal by the deadline or negotiations break down, contributors receive a full refund of their ETH. However, withdrawing funds during the fundraising process incurs a 5% fee.

Currently, research projects on the Molecule Catalyst platform undergoing token issuance are exploring topics such as Alzheimer’s antibodies, brain function restoration through transplantable tissues, fiber engineering, enamel erosion, and enzymes linked to inflammation and aging.

BIO Protocol: A Bottom-Up DeSci Financial Layer

BIO Protocol, as a governance and liquidity protocol in the DeSci field, aims to accelerate biotechnology development by enabling global patients, scientists, and biotech professionals to jointly fund, build, and own tokenized biotech projects and IP.

In early November 2024, BIO Protocol secured investment from Binance Labs, marking Binance Labs’ first venture into the DeSci sector. Additionally, BIO Protocol completed its genesis phase community fundraising this month, raising a total of $33.06 million. Founder Paul Kohlhaas revealed that BIO’s Launchpad and token transferability features will be launched in early Q1 next year.

BIO Protocol revolves around five core modules: curation, funding, liquidity, Bio/acc rewards, and meta-governance. In the curation phase, BIO holders use locked vBIO tokens for staking or voting to select their preferred BioDAOs. Selected BioDAOs can receive funding via the BIO Launchpad, along with community token liquidity support, incentives, and other acceleration services. Holders who successfully back winning DAOs are rewarded with BIO tokens and gain early access to BioDAO’s initial token funding rounds (via BIO Launchpad) and IP asset funding rounds (via Molecule).

Furthermore, revenues generated by BioDAOs from IP and product sales can flow back into the BioDAO treasury to support and commercialize the next generation of research and development.

The Bio/acc Rewards program distributes rewards in the form of BIO tokens to incentivize BioDAOs to achieve key milestones, such as conducting initial token auctions through the BIO Launchpad, launching IP Tokens, releasing consumer products, and running decentralized clinical trials. According to BIOPSY-5, 4% of the total BIO token supply (132.8 million tokens) will be allocated to Bio/acc rewards. For instance, VitaDAO has received 21 million BIO tokens through the Bio Protocol’s bio/acc rewards program.

In terms of meta-governance, the BIO Protocol’s treasury holds various BioDAO tokens, which act as a meta-governance layer, enabling BIO holders to manage a wide range of BioDAOs and scientific IP assets.

How does BIO Protocol empower its BIO token? Firstly, the BIO network provides $100,000 in grants to incubated BioDAOs in exchange for 6.9% of the BioDAO’s token supply and the distribution of bioDAO scientific IP assets. The BIO treasury can also earn fees and profits from the liquidity it provides. Furthermore, BIO tokens are used for various purposes, such as curating BioDAOs, gaining priority access to BioDAO token sales and IP token sales, receiving discounts on BioDAO health products/services, participating in BioDAO meta-governance, and governance voting.

The total supply of BIO tokens is 3.32 billion, with no upper limit (to be determined by BIO governance votes). Currently, these tokens are non-transferable on Ethereum. In terms of token allocation, 25% is for ecosystem incentives, 20% for community auctions, 5% for the Molecule ecosystem fund, 6% for community airdrops, 13.6% for investors, 21.2% for core contributors, and 5% is allocated to Molecule. Airdrops will target BioDAO token holders, early supporters from concept to launch, and core contributors from Cohort 1 of BioDAO by Molecule’s bio.xyz.

The BIO ecosystem is a network composed of multiple BioDAOs, with each BioDAO focused on developing research and products in specific scientific fields.

• [ ] VitaDAO (Token: VITA, $130 million market cap): As detailed in “DeSci Gold Rush | Industry Leader VitaDAO: How Does It Lead Longevity Research?“
• [ ] AthenaDAO (Token: ATH, $9.7 million market cap): Focused on advancing women’s health research, education, and funding, starting with female reproductive health.
• [ ] PsyDAO (Token: PSY, $4.7 million market cap): Specializes in psychedelic science research. It completed its first PSY token sale in mid-November 2024, raising $2 million.
• [ ] ValleyDAO (Token: GROW, $9 million market cap): Focuses on synthetic biology, raising over $2 million and collaborating with Imperial College London.
• [ ] HairDAO (Token: HAIR, $70 million market cap): Aims to address hair loss issues. It has launched FolliCool, a shampoo product free from harmful parabens or sulfates (includes SHAMPOO membership). The product is designed for all hair and skin types to cleanse and nourish hair follicles. Consumers who purchase FolliCool ($49.95) receive 1 million POO tokens. POO manages the future development of the HairDAO shampoo product catalog, including all sales revenue. HairDAO also advocates for increased use of human hair follicle organ culture (HFOC) models in clinical research. However, the cost of HFOC research is currently too high for mainstream adoption, so HairDAO plans to reduce the cost by 60 times in the next year.
• [ ] CryoDAO (Token: CRYO, $16 million market cap): Focuses on advancing cryopreservation research.
• [ ] CerebrumDAO (Token: NEURON, $11 million market cap): Promotes brain health, raising over $1.5 million. CerebrumDAO has partnered with Fission Pharma to address mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases.

The above seven BioDAOs are the first batch of BioDAOs incubated by BIO. The following three are the early batch projects of BIO’s second round:

• [ ] Long COVID Labs: Founded by serial healthcare entrepreneur Rohan Dixit, this DAO incentivizes collaboration and data sharing among scientists, patients, and supporters. Its first candidate treatment is a combination of long-acting monoclonal antibodies and viral replication inhibitors.
• [ ] Curetopia: Focuses on long-tail rare diseases.
• [ ] Quantum Biology DAO: Developing a quantum microscope to observe real-time quantum phenomena, supporting research in quantum biology. The project has launched a token auction on BIO. The founder and chief scientist of Quantum Biology DAO is quantum engineer Clarice D. Aiello.
• [ ]

pump.science: A No-Barriers Science Experiment and Fundraising Platform

In September of this year, the Solana Foundation provided a grant to Molecule to build the Solana-native DeSci funding platform, pump.science.

pump.science is built on top of Pump.fun. Compared to Catalyst, pump.science is an almost barrier-free research experiment and fundraising platform. On pump.science, anyone, including drug developers, scientists, and others, can submit longevity and wellness ideas or drug strategies to raise funds for their experiments. Others can bet on which interventions will extend the lifespan of different model organisms being tested, supporting the most promising ideas. \
Drug developers and scientists submitting interventions on pump.science are required to pay a certain amount of SOL as experiment fees. These SOL will be used to purchase the first batch of tokens. Once the project reaches a certain market cap threshold, it will be experimented on via the Wormbot platform. Wormbot is a low-cost, fast experimental platform designed to test a large number of potential longevity therapies at an affordable cost.

When the project is tested on real nematodes, users can watch the experimental data flow. The data is regularly transmitted to users for evaluating the value of the interventions. As the project progresses, further testing will be conducted on fruit flies and mice to collect more expensive, time-consuming, but more human-relevant data. Once approved, the related interventions can be sold as supplements or research chemicals. As the token’s market cap increases, the tokens will be sold at key milestones ($70,000, $1 million, and $3 million market cap) to fund progressively more advanced testing.

Currently, there are only two experiments on pump.science: Rifampicin (RIF) and Urolithin A (URO), both at the fruit fly testing stage, with market caps of $190 million and $97 million, respectively. Both experiments are 2.74% complete.

Rifampicin is an antibiotic used to treat various bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, Mycobacterium avium complex, leprosy, and Legionnaires’ disease (according to Wikipedia). It has been shown to activate the natural defense mechanisms of cells against stress and damage in organisms like Caenorhabditis elegans (a type of nematode).

Urolithin A is a compound produced by the body when consuming foods rich in ellagic tannins, such as pomegranates. It helps drive the mitochondrial autophagy process, clearing old and dysfunctional mitochondria, allowing new, healthy mitochondria to thrive. In human studies, Urolithin A has shown promising potential in promoting muscle health and energy.

These two experiments on pump.science test the longevity performance of fruit flies by comparing the relevant compounds against a placebo treatment with no active drugs. Each test tube contains 15 fruit flies, and the monitoring data for the fruit flies is regularly uploaded to the platform for user evaluation.

It is important to note that the lifespan of nematodes (worms) in experimental environments is limited to 20 to 30 days, with the cost of conducting such an experiment ranging from $300 to $500. In contrast, fruit flies have a slightly longer lifespan of about 3 months, but their corresponding experimental cost is around $2,000 to $3,000. The cost of each mouse experiment ranges from $30,000 to $60,000, with a lifespan of up to 2 to 3 years. Therefore, when it comes to testing in later stages, the uncertainty due to accumulated time costs is very high.

According to the pump.science roadmap, on January 25, 2025, mouse trials will be conducted using Rifampicin (RIF) and Urolithin A (URO). On February 25, 2025, a new compound will be launched in collaboration with VitaDAO, followed by supplement preorders and market launch on March 25, 2025, with human trials starting in April.

At the beginning of December, Molecule also announced several recent plans, including collaborating with Bio Protocol to promote BioDAO’s research on pump.science, and in early 2025, VitaDAO will acquire longevity compounds from The Longevity Prize in Pump Science and develop them into supplements. They will also launch the DeSci Ecosystem Fund, allocating half of Molecule’s BIO distribution (166 million BIO) to drive groundbreaking science, and buy back $100,000 worth of RIF and URO tokens to reaffirm their commitment to pump.science and PhDegen.

Currently, the DeSci field is still in its early stages but has shown significant development potential. This potential is expected to arise from the recognition of its ability to address transparency, funding, and collaboration issues in traditional scientific research. However, DeSci still faces challenges, including but not limited to technology adoption, regulatory issues, and maintaining a balance between scientific rigor and transparency.

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