Gambling For Science: Ideosphere Wants To Fund Research With...

Ideosphere wants to redirect crypto’s speculative energy into scientific prediction markets, betting on research results that finance scientific research.

The co-founders of the decentralized science startup Ideosphere told Cointelegraph they aim to redirect the speculative energy of crypto prediction markets toward financing early-stage scientific research.

Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Blockchain for Good Awards event in Copenhagen, Denmark, Ideosphere co-founder and head of technology Rei Jarram said that some research is considered too risky to invest in through traditional channels.

She said that seeing the volume of money flowing to crypto gambling platforms prompted the project’s founders to wonder “if you could kind of siphon some of that speculation away from gambling toward early-stage research.”

Jarram saw prediction markets as a perfect fit since “gamblers have a high risk appetite and early stage research and development is pretty risky.”

Jarram said that while talent and innovation exist in abundance, funding remains scarce because traditional channels consider such projects too risky. “The money is there” she said, “but if they can’t get the money, it’s probably because of an incentive issue,” which is what Ideosphere hopes to solve.

The project is still in the early stages of development, with only front-end mockups available so far. Still, they have been awarded 10,000 USDt (USDT) of funding by the Blockchain for Good Alliance during the event.

Related: Decentralized science will bring the brain on-chain

As with most decentralized science (DeSci) projects, Ideosphere is more complex than it may appear at first. Without further countermeasures, a setup like the one described above is vulnerable to corruption and errors, leading to erroneously closed markets.

Researchers can make mistakes and come to the wrong conclusion, and with a prediction market resolving to their results, they have an incentive to close the market in the least anticipated way and engage in insider trading. The co-founders have some countermeasures in mind that should alleviate this issue.

Source: CoinTelegraph