Scientist releases cryptocurrency to researchers
A new coin, based on the Ethereum blockchain, aims to incentivise scientists to use new technology.
Earlier today, Frankl Open Science conducted an airdrop of cryptocurrency for scientists and science students. Up to 700 million tokens will be distributed free to science undergrads, postgrads, PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers across all fields of science, with the goal of empowering the world’s research community with incentives for sharing scientific data.
Frankl Open Science is an Australian organisation co-founded by cognitive scientist Dr Jon Brock and blockchain veteran Peter Godbolt.
Godbolt said, “We’re developing apps to integrate blockchain into the scientific workflow. And we’re releasing a new ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain to incentivise data sharing. The bulk of the tokens will be made available during our July token sale, but we want to give scientists the first opportunity to be involved.”
An airdrop can be a useful way to drum up interest in an ICO but by targeting a specific group, Frankl hopes to give scientists working on current research an incentive to share their work. The team behind Frankl believe science has been slow to adopt emerging technologies that can enhance the value of research.
Brock added, “Blockchain has the potential to offer secure, immutable and persistent data records and determine who has access to that data. And we think that a cryptocurrency for science can offer incentives that drive research participation, transparency and collaboration.”
Frankl is collaborating with a number of researchers including neuropsychologist Professor Greg Savage from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders at Macquarie University. He has created a new diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s disease which will form one of the first Frankl data collection apps.
“This is the kind of project that’s been waiting to happen for a long time,” says Savage. “A lot of the clinically-based testing that’s done is within a framework that’s longstanding, normatively-based and like a large ship it takes ages to turn in any new direction. If a platform was actually designed to be based on data sharing, there would be rapid advances", he said.
All scientists and science students can register for the airdrop here.
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