AI and DeSci: The Infrastructure Potential Behind the Narrative of Bull and Bear Markets

There is still a long way to go before blockchain technology is widely applied. Recently, although Bitcoin has risen over 20%, there has been ongoing discourse about the "lack of practical applications in the cryptocurrency industry" during the market downturn over the past six months. Emerging fields like Depin are still under construction, and its subfield, such as cloud computing, has yet to be genuinely widely adopted.

However, in the recent Meme coin frenzy, the DeSci( decentralized science) concept has unexpectedly become popular. In the early stages of a new concept, speculative hype is inevitable, but after many years of development in the blockchain industry, it is time to consider how to build applications that truly benefit humanity.

Last year, the AI revolution led by ChatGPT injected new momentum into this round of bull market. The view that "AI represents advanced productive forces, while blockchain represents the redistribution and integration of advanced production relationships" has sparked heated discussions, becoming one of the new narratives before the bull market. In this trend, projects like Bittensor and fetch.ai have rapidly risen.

In September of this year, with the recovery of the cryptocurrency market, AI concept Meme coins became popular due to $Goat. Some teams and even individuals can profit by simply developing AI Agents with specific functions, nurturing a community, and issuing tokens with the same name.

The concept of DeSci can be traced back to the last bull market, but due to the long cycle of "Science", it has not received much attention. The real breakout began when a trading platform invested in BIO Protocol and held DeSci events. The platform and its CEO have repeatedly mentioned DeSci, leading to a surge in concept coins, with the total market value of related tokens exceeding $800 million.

Good narratives require long-term infrastructure construction to achieve practical application. The core support of AI—computing power resource scheduling—is still under development and has yet to be validated by the market. However, the decentralized storage technology behind DeSci is relatively mature, waiting for more people to adopt it.

DeSci promotes global open access to research data through distributed storage, reduces single control, and avoids data leakage and tampering. It makes research more transparent and allows researchers worldwide to share resources. DeSci also uses smart contracts and DAOs to improve the transparency and efficiency of research funding, helping to raise funds.

DeSci innovates in two ways: 1. fundraising through tokens; 2. transferring research data storage from centralized servers to the blockchain. Its essence is to leverage the speculative psychology of the crypto market to promote the monetization of value and the application in the research field.

Currently, the popularity of DeSci is mainly driven by memes, and the industry development is wrapped in market sentiment. Scientific research requires continuous and substantial funding, facing high risks, which contradicts the short-term speculative characteristics of memes. In the short term, there may be a large number of speculative projects, but only after filtering out the false and preserving the true can we truly achieve the goal of "crypto-finance driving the monetization of scientific research outcomes."

DeSci has a huge demand for data storage and on-chain proof. If a mature business model can be established, decentralized storage will become its infrastructure, driving the development of the related ecosystem.

Decentralized storage has gone through multiple stages from Storj to Filecoin and Arweave. Compared to centralized storage, it is on average 78% cheaper, with differences in enterprise-level storage reaching up to 121 times, and it has advantages in security and privacy. However, user experience and product maturity remain limiting factors.

Last year, a decentralized storage infrastructure launched by a certain trading platform marked a new height in the field. It provides storage infrastructure for the entire ecosystem, supporting the creation, storage, and exchange of fully owned data. With a native cross-chain bridge, users can freely transfer assets across different chains.

The advantages of this project compared to IPFS and Arweave lie in its deep integration with the main chain, cross-chain support, the combination of storage and computing, as well as low cost and high efficiency. In the future, it can be applied in scenarios such as website hosting, personal cloud storage, blockchain data storage, content publishing, social media, and personal data markets.

Key projects in its ecosystem include:

1. 4EVERLAND: The largest decentralized storage provider, serving as both a storage provider and validator. Supports multiple chains, combining storage and computing resources to offer flexible storage solutions and decentralized AI services. Already has 3 million users and has received investment from multiple institutions.

2. BAS: Basic Data Protocol Standard, providing decentralized verification services, supporting user data sovereignty, and providing reliable data for AI training. Connections have been established with over 3,000 certified parties and more than 100 partners.

These projects provide verification and management capabilities for decentralized storage, enhancing security, transparency, and user control.

If the DeSci business model is validated and gains support from major platforms, it will greatly promote the prosperity of the related ecosystem and drive the large-scale application of decentralized storage. From a more macro perspective, this relates to whether the crypto industry can achieve sustainable development.

The attention and investment of industry giants in DeSci reflect the vision of blockchain financial services supporting the real economy and realizing value landing. This is an innovative attempt aimed at promoting blockchain technology to make substantial contributions to society.