Opinion: Sasha Shilina, founder of Epistme and researcher at the Paradigm Research Institute
In 2024, nature Reported Record number of withdrawal of scientific paper: over 10,000 articles collected from magazines due to fraud, duplication or faulty methodology. Peer Review, the backbone of the academic ID has long been formed, is besieged. It is too free, too foggy and too simple to fight.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence models trained on this defective data set generate some but nonsense. Identity documents quote Non -existent research. Research decisions are guided by influence, not inference. The Internet, once hailed as democratizing knowledge of knowledge, is now a battlefield about disinformation, clicking and manipulated indicators.
We live in epistemic crisis.
And yet, buried in unlikely corners of a cryptocurrency forum and a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), a modern architecture is created. Not to transfer values, but to verify the truth.
Layer 2 for knowledge
In the cryptographic world, the 2S layer solves the problem of scalability. They facilitate Ethereum in processing more transactions faster and cheaper. But what if a real bottleneck of scalability is not financial – is epistemological?
Learning is not scaling. Hierarchies of reputation, older magazines and financing of bottleneck guards. Brilliant hypotheses die in Grant Purgatory. Replications are invaluable. Errors require years to improve, if at all.
What does “layer 2 for truth” really look like? This system transforms scientific hypotheses into Onchain, public, tough and open to control. Instead of granting faith in social media, participants put it, putting the skin in the game and exposing their beliefs to real risk. The resolution becomes a hybrid process: AI models evidence and results, human competing validators or confirm the results, and decentralized oracles record a clear result. Most importantly, incentives move away from prestige towards precision, rewarding those who are right, not just well prepared.
This is not decentralized finances (DEFI). This is not even decentralized science (board). There is aggressive, decentralized science (Descai). However, it is more radically epistemic finances: markets built not around coins, but to claims.
Betting
This is not just a scientific gambling. This is structural inversion. Today, academic economics awards are fascinating, not correct. Nippy documents attract the attention of the media and renewal of subsidies, regardless of whether their arrangements replicate. Meanwhile, replication tests, zero results and still work often disappear.
Prognostic markets can reverse the script. They pay for the reason. Do not be raucous, renowned or institutionally blessed, but simply improve the world. If a biotechnology researcher predicts that a given compound will reduce tumor growth by 20% in mice and are right, they win. If they are wrong, they lose. Straightforward. Crystal clear. Brutally forthright.
In this model, belief becomes a measurable resource. Knowledge becomes fluid. The market not only mentions tokens; He lists epistemic trust.
The problem of the oracle
In Crypto, “Oracle Problem” flawlessly provides data in blockchain. In this epistemic architecture, the oracle is not just a price channel. It mediates in what is accepted as true.
Related: Cryptocurrency policy trends to watch in 2025: Privacy, development and adoption
This raises uncomfortable questions: who can decide what is true? Can AI serve as a reliable solution? What happens when the markets are wrong?
The answer is that there is no single oracle. There is a protocol. The resolution becomes a process: partly adhesion, partly and partially-historical. Participants question, update and improve claims. The truth becomes iterative, open source and opposite, like the code.
Yes, it opens the door to epistemic variability. In a world where even Nobel laureates do not understand this, is volatility better than stagnation?
From publication to protocols
The internet has disturbed the pub. Blockchains disturbed the finances. Now the third disturbance is underway: knowledge protocolization.
In this emerging paradigm, the architecture of knowledge itself is imagined again. The papers are no longer immobile PDF, but vigorous contracts set with a predictive weight, designed to inform and test. Quotes become more than scientific gestures; They are transformed into Onchain links with annotations with confidence results and identified influence. After a closed ritual of the Guard, Peer Review evolves to an open, opposite verification market, at which claims can be questioned, changed and resolved in public opinion.
In this model, science ceases to be a immobile archive and becomes an economical, vigorous and multiple life system.
Truth is another asset class
We valued money, time and attention. We have never really valued faith. Not so far.
A modern type of market appears, which does not reward speculation, but verification – a civic instrument to compensate for the incentives around the truth in the noise era. The question is not whether these markets are risky. All markets are. The question is: can we afford it not?
If Crypto is a modern internet, we need more than memes, memeins and JPEG monkeys. We need infrastructure for the next epistemic era: in order to validate what is significant, when it matters, publicly.
The next immense layer is not for money. This is for the truth.
Opinion: Sasha Shilina, founder of Episteme and researcher at the Paradigm Research Institute.
This article is used for general information purposes and should not be and should not be treated as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are themselves and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
