Nature, one of the world’s most cited scientific journals, introduced ResearchHub, a decentralized science (DeSci) protocol. This is a move that could potentially warn the wider scientific community about DeSci and cryptocurrencies.
In a December 11 article, Nature, which has 9 million monthly viewers, introduced ResearchHub’s platform, which pays peer reviewers the equivalent of $150 in cryptocurrency to provide independent reviews of new research papers. .
Nature’s article points out that it has also proven to be a financial opportunity for some people. Pedro Paulo Gattai Gomes, a Sao Paulo molecular biology consultant, said he now makes more money writing reviews for ResearchHub than he did working as a professor at an academic institution. .
The scientist reviews an average of 15 papers a month and earns $150 worth of ResearchHub ResearchCoin tokens (RSC) for each review, he told the journal:
“Getting paid for reviews is justice. Because, in my opinion, it is very unfair to work voluntarily and not be thanked.”
source: nature
Being featured in Nature can be considered a big win for DeSci. That’s because Nature boasts a very high Journal Impact Factor score of 50.5, which is the average number of times each journal has been cited.
RSC is up nearly 20% in the past 24 hours, hitting $1.01, according to CoinGecko data. The market capitalization is $96.1 million.
DeSci protocol ResearchHub, launched in 2020, is backed by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who spoke at the ResearchHub Journal launch event in San Francisco, California last month.
“It’s a strange thing in history that peer reviewers don’t get paid. “The work they do is valuable and we should recognize and reward it.”
But Nature said that while ResearchHub tackles some “problems” in science, its “radical nature” may make it difficult for it to succeed.
Nature is cashing out RSC for fiat, as many scientists are having to use decentralized exchanges like Uniswap to exchange RSC for more notable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and USD Coin (USDC). He said it might be difficult to do. It is sent to a centralized exchange where it is converted to fiat currency and converted to offramp.
However, ResearchHub has already taken steps to simplify that process, with RSC officially listing on Gate.io’s central exchange on November 29.
source: Research Hub
ResearchHub Journals officially launched last month, but has been paying reviewers to review, comment or vote on uploaded preprints since May 2023.
ResearchHub users can also tip each other for good work or pay others to complete research-related tasks, such as generating data for reviews.
Authors pay $1,000 for article processing fees, and ResearchHub takes a 7% cut from the site’s ResearchCoin transactions. Of that, 2% is “returned” to the community, Nature noted.
Nature noted that ResearchHub Journal does not publish its own papers and is not indexed in bibliometric databases such as Web of Science or Scopus.
relevant: Decentralized Science Is Like DeFi in Early 2019: Crypto VC
Decentralized science is becoming an increasingly popular topic within the industry, hitting a five-year high on Google Trends last month in November alone.
It aims to address challenges in traditional science such as lack of funding, data sharing or collaboration, and use cases range from advancing research and reducing the cost of genetic testing to curing baldness.
The industry-leading DeSci token has a market cap of more than $1.2 billion, according to CoinGecko data.
magazine: DeSci: Can cryptocurrencies improve scientific research?