Biomedical and scientific companies are turning to blockchain technology and crypto asset strategies to fund research, overhauling traditional capital formation and research funding structures that can delay life-saving treatments by decades.
Portage Biotech, a biomedical technology company, pivoted into a Toncoin (TON) finance company in September, earning operating revenue from staking to secure the network and investments in Telegram ecosystem projects, including games and mini-apps.
AlphaTON CEO Brittany Kaiser told Cointelegraph that the company will funnel a portion of its operating revenue and TON’s capital increase to fund cancer research.
Differences between traditional scientific research funding models and decentralized scientific structures. sauce: cointelegraph
He said the company is exploring real-world asset tokenization (RWA) as an alternative funding mechanism to decentralize scientific development and remove financial and access barriers to research funding inherent in traditional systems. She said:
“We are looking at the best case studies and what works and what doesn’t, from tokenizing intellectual property to tokenizing the equity of companies that own the research to tokenizing the future profits of the research.”
Kaiser and AlphaTON’s strategic advisor Anthony Scaramucci said biomedical research is what sets the company apart from other digital asset treasuries, which often do not have commercial operations.
“Most crypto treasury companies take over a shell and eliminate key aspects of the original business, but this is a new case because there are very valuable assets in the shell,” Scaramucci told Cointelegraph.
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Ideosphere wants to fund scientific research through prediction markets
Decentralized science startup Ideosphere is looking to fund early-stage scientific research through prediction markets. Prediction market platforms serve as crowd-sourced intelligence and voting mechanisms.
A mockup example of what an Ideosphere prediction market would look like. Source: Ideosphere/cointelegraph
“If you can create prediction markets around early-stage research, you can turn those markets into markets for ideas that actually bring in money,” Ray Jaram, co-founder and head of technology at Ideospehre, told Cointelegraph.
“Researchers can present the hypothesis they are researching, traders can speculate on it, and the spread goes to the researchers,” she added.
Bio Protocol secures funding from Animoca Brands
In September, Bio Protocol, a decentralized science platform that combines artificial intelligence, blockchain, and community engagement for drug discovery research, secured $6.9 million in funding from Web3 company Animoca Brands and the Maelstrom Foundation.
Maelstrom founder Arthur Hayes said the platform has the potential to become a full-fledged “AI-native research marketplace” that will change the way scientific research is conducted.
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