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

A week after Trump won the U.S. election, BTC rose more than 20%, and Meme coins went crazy again. However, during the past six months of market downturn, the rhetoric of "the crypto industry lacks solid support" has always existed. At that time, the Depin industry was still under construction, and its subfield of cloud computing was still some distance away from large-scale application. However, amid the Meme speculation craze, the DeSci concept unexpectedly became hot again.

Every new concept inevitably goes through a phase of speculation and hype at its inception, and DeSci is no exception. However, after many years of development in the blockchain industry, it is time to consider how to build practical applications that benefit humanity.

The integration of AI and DeSci

At the beginning of last year, the AI revolution led by ChatGPT injected new momentum into the bull market. The new paradigm of "AI represents advanced productive forces, while blockchain represents the redistribution and integration of advanced production relations" sparked heated discussions and became one of the new narratives on the eve of the bull market. In this trend, projects like Bittensor and fetch.ai rapidly emerged.

In September of this year, with the recovery of the cryptocurrency market, AI concept Meme coins surged due to $Goat. Small teams or even individuals can profit by developing AI Agents with specific functions, nurturing communities and fans, and issuing Meme coins with the same name.

The concept of DeSci can be traced back to the last bull market, but it has not attracted much attention due to the long research cycles. It wasn't until November 8 that a trading platform announced its investment in BIO Protocol, marking its first foray into the DeSci field. Subsequently, the platform held a DeSci Day event in Bangkok, where executives expressed their hope to see 1,000 DeSci projects next year. This statement sparked a wave of Meme coins related to the DeSci concept, with several popular coins such as $uro, $rif, and $SciHub emerging one after another, and the total market value of related concepts surpassing 800 million USD.

However, good narratives not only require short-term popularity but also need long-term infrastructure development to achieve real application implementation. The core support of AI—computing power resources, is still in the development stage through Depin cloud computing scheduling idle computing power, with few large-scale applications, and the cost and stability still need to be verified by the market.

The core technology behind DeSci - decentralized storage, has been proven to be more cost-effective and secure than traditional centralized storage solutions since the development of the IPFS protocol. Currently, the solutions are relatively mature, and the infrastructure for DeSci has basically been established. Now, more people need to recognize and adopt the concept of decentralized storage.

The Essence and Challenges of the DeSci Concept

DeSci, or decentralized science, promotes global open access to research data through distributed storage technology, reducing the singular control over data and avoiding the risks of leakage, loss, and tampering associated with centralized storage. This model makes research activities more open and transparent, allowing researchers worldwide to freely share resources. DeSci also utilizes smart contracts and DAOs to improve the transparency and efficiency of research funding, helping scientists raise research funds.

The DeSci model achieves innovation in two areas: 1. Raising funds through token issuance; 2. Transferring research data storage to a decentralized and permanently immutable blockchain.

DeSci essentially leverages the speculative psychology of the cryptocurrency market to promote the monetization of value and practical applications in the research field. Currently, the popularity of the DeSci concept is primarily supported by the wealth effect driven by Memes, with industry development being influenced by market sentiment. However, the research field requires continuous and substantial financial investment while facing high risks and high failure rates, which contradicts the short-term speculative nature of Memes.

In the short term, a large number of speculators may use this as a gimmick to launch project financing, rather than genuinely investing in scientific research. Therefore, after a brief period of popularity, DeSci will enter a phase of distinguishing the genuine from the false, gradually cultivating users' understanding of DeSci, and ultimately achieving the goal of "driving the monetization of scientific research results through crypto finance."

The demand for data storage and on-chain proof behind DeSci is enormous. If DeSci can leverage the popularity of Memes to break boundaries and establish a mature business model, decentralized storage will become the infrastructure of DeSci, and this stable and massive demand will greatly promote the development of the decentralized storage ecosystem.

The development and advantages of decentralized storage

Decentralized storage has gone through several development stages from Storj to Filecoin, Arweave, and the IPFS protocol. Analysis from May 2023 shows that decentralized storage is on average about 78% cheaper than centralized storage, with differences in enterprise-level data storage reaching up to 121 times. Decentralized storage has clear advantages in data security, privacy, and reliability. However, despite some Web2 clients starting to adopt solutions like Filecoin and Arweave, centralized storage still dominates the market with its intuitive user experience and mature product ecosystem.

In April last year, a trading platform launched a decentralized storage infrastructure, providing decentralized storage services for the entire ecosystem. Users and DApps can create, store, and exchange data that they fully own. Through the native cross-chain bridge with the smart chain, users can freely transfer assets between the two and interact conveniently with DApps.

Compared to IPFS and Arweave, this platform's advantages lie in its deep integration with the ecosystem, cross-chain support, the combination of storage and computing capabilities, and low cost and high efficiency. This makes it more suitable for DeFi, smart contracts, and Web3 application scenarios, with stronger scalability and ecological synergy.

In the future, the platform can be applied in multiple fields such as website hosting, personal cloud storage, blockchain data storage, content publishing, social media, and personal data markets.

At the same time, support for ecological projects is also crucial. In a recent community voting event, 4EVERLAND and BAS became important components as native infrastructure.

4EVERLAND: A multifunctional decentralized storage solution

4EVERLAND is the largest decentralized storage provider in the ecosystem. As an officially certified storage provider and validator, 4EVERLAND offers powerful storage resources, supports multiple networks, and is committed to building an efficient decentralized storage network. By integrating the features of IPFS and Arweave, 4EVERLAND provides a superior storage network integration solution, improving user experience and reducing usage difficulty.

The main advantages of 4EVERLAND include:

• Dual role of storage and verification
• Multi-chain support and compatibility
• Decentralized storage and computing resources combined
• Flexible storage solutions
• Decentralized AI Services
• DWeb Hosting Services

Currently, 4EVERLAND has over 3 million registered users, with more than 100,000 daily active users, ranking among the top in terms of IPFS and Arweave storage capacity within the ecosystem. In terms of financing, it has received support from several well-known institutions and projects.

4EVERLAND has recently collaborated with multiple DeSci projects to promote the decentralized storage of scientific literature. By combining IPFS, Arweave, and Greenfield, a storage solution suitable for DeSci has been established, with cold backup data stored on Arweave and hot data access placed on Greenfield.

BAS: Decentralized Data Verification Service

BAS, as a foundational data protocol standard, aims to generate authentication of verification information, bringing trusted private data into the Web3 ecosystem and providing data support for AI. The characteristics of BAS include:

• Decentralized Verification Service
• User Sovereignty and Data Privacy
• AI training and dataset services
• Ecosystem Collaboration and Application

The introduction of BAS provides the platform with data validation and management capabilities, enhancing security, transparency, and user control. By integrating with BAS, the platform can ensure data validation and compliance while offering efficient data management and access control features.

attempts at sustainable development in the cryptocurrency industry

Decentralized storage infrastructure is an important strategic layout, representing a significant innovation in the ecosystem. Unlike the "frontline forces" that are directly facing users, it works more quietly behind the scenes, and its high performance and high interoperability are conducive to the development of new narratives in the industry.

If the business model of DeSci is validated, along with the traffic support from trading platforms, it will greatly promote ecological prosperity, and decentralized storage will also achieve large-scale application. From a macro perspective, the sustainable development of the crypto industry relates to the interests of all users and practitioners.

The emphasis placed by industry leaders and platforms on DeSci, along with the resources invested, shows that this is not just concept hype, but an innovative attempt. It reflects the vision of the blockchain financial services market, the realization of value, and the promotion of blockchain technology's contribution to society.