DeSci Wants to Fix Science, But Science Isn't the Only Thing That's Broken.
Decentralized science, is emerging as a trust-restoring force in today's knowledge systems. It is grounded in a simple but powerful idea: return control to the people. DeSci is reshaping how research is funded, conducted, and shared by removing gatekeepers and creating transparent, participatory frameworks for scientific collaboration. It is often described as "science for the people," and rightly so, as it pushes for the rewriting of the role of institutions, rewarding open contribution, and prioritizing community over bureaucracy.
So far, this vision has found meaningful expression, especially in biomedical research, health data, and scientific infrastructure. If you examine DeSci today, what you will find is a narrow stream of activity. DAOs funding early-stage drug research, projects pushing for open-access data, efforts to tokenize lab work or peer review. Projects like SpectruthDAO, Molecule, ErectusDAO, and ResearchHub are orbiting around biomedicine, healthcare infrastructure, and academic research. While these are important shifts, they are also, at this moment, sector-specific. The institutions these projects are targeted at are flawed, but they are not the only places where trust has eroded. Not by a long shot.
If DeSci is fundamentally about rebuilding trust and decentralizing access to knowledge, its impact need not be limited to science alone.
Trust Is Not Only Broken in Science
The erosion of trust that drives the DeSci momentum is not unique to academia or health. In many parts of the world, artists struggle to protect their intellectual property. Musicians face opaque royalty systems. Local inventors often lack the infrastructure to secure patents. Traditional knowledge systems, especially those rooted in indigenous cultures, are undervalued or extracted without credit.
These sectors, too, deal with centralized control, lack of recognition, and the unequal distribution of value. This is where the potential of DeSci becomes even more exciting. The principles behind it, openness, autonomy, peer validation, community governance, are not exclusive to labs and research papers. They are broadly applicable across all sectors where knowledge and creativity are plagued by centralization and control.
DeSci Must Grow Up
In its current form, the DeSci ecosystem is already doing valuable work. But what we are beginning to see is a space that could grow into something much bigger.
Circular Protocol is at the forefront of exploring this expanded scope. Unlike many DeSci efforts that focus primarily on scientific workflows, Circular is thinking across boundaries, bringing the same trust infrastructure to bear on lived experience, community knowledge, and decentralized reputation systems. It is an example of how DeSci can reach into sectors that are not traditionally considered "science," but are just as rooted in the politics of recognition and access.
Science is one site of transformation, but it is not the only one. And if DeSci continues to evolve as a people-first movement, it has the potential to become much more than a research or lab tool, it can become a social infrastructure.
