Understanding science funding in tech, 2011-2021

In almost all cases, we’re not particularly interested in incremental improvements. For one, by definition if you’re incrementally improving something that already exists, then a lot of people deeply understand the specific area you’re building in. The degree of difficulty for incrementalism is also meaningfully lower when building with open-source... See more

Still in its infancy, DeSci lies at the intersection of two broader trends: 1) efforts within the scientific community to change how research is funded and knowledge is shared, and 2) efforts within the crypto-focused movement to shift ownership and value away from industry intermediaries.

In crypto, an entire generation of alienated tech workers saw potential to have their cake (create a better, decentralized internet) and eat it too (get very wealthy).