Can Crypto Gambling Fuel Science?

Ideosphere, a startup with ambitious goals, aims to harness the power of crypto prediction markets to fund early-stage scientific research. The idea is to redirect funds from crypto gambling towards high-risk, high-reward research that traditional investors often overlook.

The Problem

• Talent and innovation exist, but funding is scarce.
• Traditional investors often shy away from risky projects, leaving many ideas unfunded.
• Ideosphere wants to create a marketplace of ideas where researchers can present hypotheses, and traders can speculate on them.
• The spread from these trades would then go to the researchers.

Challenges and Solutions

Potential Issues

• Decentralized science projects come with risks, such as corruption and errors.
• Researchers might manipulate results to close markets unexpectedly.

Proposed Solutions

• Dispute System: Ideosphere plans to implement a dispute system, possibly using the UMA Protocol.
• Rewards users who initiate correct disputes.
• Penalizes those who don't, creating a crowdfunded peer review.
• Vetting Process: Researchers will need to:
• Secure a deposit.
• Undergo a vetting process that includes user voting.
• Provide estimates on commercial viability and time-to-market.

Additional Initiatives

• Discovery Markets: Identify high-impact, feasible projects that could be funded with minimal resources.
• Researchers can access crowdfunding and prediction market trading spreads.
• Caveat: They'll need a lot of volume to generate substantial funding.

Current Status

• Early Stages: Only front-end mockups available so far.
• Funding: Received 10,000 USDt from the Blockchain for Good Alliance.

Conclusion: It's a bold idea, but only time will tell if it can truly redirect speculative energy towards scientific progress.