Blockchain for science and knowledge creation. A technical fix to the reproducibility crisis?

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Blockchain for science and knowledge creation - A technical ﬁx to the
reproducibility crisis ?
Article · August 2016
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.60223
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Blockchain for science and knowledge
creation
A technical fix to the reproducibility crisis ?

PD Dr. med. Sönke Bartling (@soenkeba, soenkebartling@mailbox.org)
Associate researcher at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society

Benedikt Fecher (benedikt.fecher@hiig.de)
German Institute for Economic Research and Alexander von Humboldt Institute for internet
and society

Abstract:

Blockchain technology has the capacity to make digital goods immutable, transparent,
externally provable, decentralized, and distributed. Besides the initial experiment or data
acquisition, all remaining parts of the research cycle could take place within a blockchain
system. Attribution, data, data postprocessing, publication, research evaluation,
incentivisation, and research fund distribution would thereby become comprehensible, open
(at will) and provable to the external world. Currently, scientists must be trusted to provide a
true and useful representation of their research results in their final publication; blockchain
would make much larger parts of the research cycle open to scientific selfcorrection. This
bears the potential to be a technical solution to the current reproducibility crisis in science,
and could ‘reduce waste and make more research results true’.

Introduction
Currently blockchain is being hyped. Many claim that the blockchain revolution will affect
not only our online lives, but will profoundly change many more aspects of our society [1–4]).
Many foresee these changes as potentially being more farreaching than those brought by
the internet in the last two decades. If this holds true, it is certain that research and
knowledge creation will also be affected by this. So, why is that the case, and what is this all
about? More importantly, could knowledge creation benefit from it? Adoption of new
technologies is good, however, it should not be an end in itself there should be problems
that could be solved. Currently, there is a credibility and reproducibility crisis in science
[5–14].
In this publication, we will first provide some abstractions and technical points of blockchain ,
then discuss application examples, and finally (or lastly), identify problems in the research
world that might be solved by means of blockchain .
Blockchain the data structure

In a literal sense, blockchain is a computer data structure. A row of data blocks that are
connected through a cryptographic function, the earliest description of this data structure
dates back to 1991 [15]. If one changes the the content of one block, all following blocks
need to change as well.

Blockchain became widely known by being the data structure (= ledger) in Bitcoin [16,17].
Bitcoin is an online payment processing tool that lacks centrality and trusted third parties
such as banks or companies (like Paypal). It is distributed, the blockchain ledger is stored on
many computers, and there is no single point of failure. In Bitcoin, long known concepts have
been successfully implemented together and found wide use for the first time, as they are:

● Cryptographic tools such as public key cryptography and hashes
● Consensus mechanisms (=ways to settle discrepancies within same data sets that
are stored on different computers) [18,19]
● Proofofwork (=methods that uses laborious computer calculations to prevent a
system from being flooded with ‘spam’ or fake identities) [20]
● Economic incentives (miners are paid with Bitcoins) to agree upon the right state of
the blockchain ledger

Bitcoin continues to function reliably, despite several billion dollars worth of value now within
its network. Breaking Bitcoin could potentially make large portions of this money accessible
to the attacker.

Blockchain the (r)evolution

However, payment processing is just one application of blockchain systems. To differentiate
the characteristics of the upcoming online (r)evolution from the payment processing tool and
implementation of Bitcoin itself, the term ‘blockchain’ is nowadays used in a much wider
meaning. It stands for a system of organizing all kinds of digital things, be it files, databases,
or assets, in ways that were first widely perceived in Bitcoin. Attributes of this system
include:

● Decentralized
● Distributed
● Immutable
● Transparent (provable to the external world)

Before we explain in more detail what this means, let us first take a look at how we use
computer services today:

For us nowadays, it is clear that whoever provides online services, be it a cloud storage
service, a bank, an email provider, or a scientific publisher, needs to be trusted to do what
they are supposed to do. We know that the provider could technically alter our accounts,
change scientific results, or indeed our emails and files at will. We rely on those trusted third
parties not to do so (Figure 1). Furthermore, we know that once data is digitalized, it can be
arbitrarily changed at will without leaving a trace (e.g. by researchers).

Figure 1: Today the owner (or researcher, academic publisher, datarepository etc.)
has full control over their computer, data, and services they run (e.g. a database).
After the blockchain revolution, this is no longer the case, as decentralized trust
providing systems provide ‘cryptographic power’ to ensure the integrity of a
computer service and authenticity of the underlying database.

After the blockchain revolution, this changes fundamentally. The following things may sound
a bit nerdish, but they have far reaching implications and it is worthwhile understanding the
terms they will be used much more often in the future.

Decentralization means that there is no single point of failure: there is no computer system
that can be switched off, censored, or otherwise blocked in order to stop a service.

Distributed means that there is no single hardware infrastructure holding the service. Often,
this means that a copy of a database exists on several computers, however, it may also be
the case that a database is split between many computers.

Immutability means that strictly speaking data cannot be changed. However, in practice,
this means that data cannot be changed without leaving a trace. Most of the time, this
means that old versions can be recovered and that any changes will be protocolled in a
system. It is like comparing an excel sheet in which values can be changed at will to a piece
of paper. On paper a trace of every manipulation is left displayed (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Blockchain can make research databases immutable, meaning that they
cannot be changed without leaving a trace.

Transparent (provable to the external world) means that a computer program is really
running as is publicised (advertised). At the moment, we must rely upon others to calculate
things (e.g. impact factor) or to apply postprocessing tools to research data as they claim
that they are doing it; after blockchain revolution, this will be transparent and provable to
peers.

In what follows, blockchain will refer to the data structure and blockchain will refer to a
system that comprises the above features.

Blockchain revolution the technical implementations

Blockchain characteristics are being realized through cryptographic methods and consensus
protocols. All of these are long since known, and were initially described to handle hardware
failures, e.g. inside big databases [18]. Nowadays, they are used to provide trust among
sometimes unknown and distributed entities.

Blockchain systems rely on many discrete computers to secure the blockchain system and
provide the trust or security that is today provided by administrators (Figure 1). These
computers can be anonymous entities (miners) which are incentivized to do so by intrinsic
value inherent to the system (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum) [21]. They can also be defined by a
central authority. For example, the securing computers could be provided by trusted and
independent research institutes [22] or governmental organizations. However, in contrast to
what trusted third party administrators can do today, the blockchainsecuring computers
cannot alter data stored in the blockchain systems in an undetermined manner, even if
someone wanted them to do so. They simply provide ‘cryptographic power’ so as to secure
the blockchain. However, if a certain amount of them are compromised, data that is stored in
a blockchain system becomes completely unreliable and mutable. This is not a bug, but an
inherent characteristic of the consensus mechanisms. If they are selected carefully and
guarded, such an event would be very unlikely.
Blockchain revolution beyond Bitcoin

There are many Bitcoinlike blockchain systems. Focusing on their ‘coin’ aspect, they are
called ‘altcoins’ [23]. Many are just copycats and/or scam attempts, but others provide very
interesting new features and functionalities that extend far beyond payment processing. A
discussion of these is beyond the scope of this article, and would actually be difficult to
provide, since innovations and interesting new concepts are being published on almost a
daily basis [24]. A list based on current market capitalization can be found here. Here, we
will mention some that implement concepts or provide an organizational structure that are
especially interesting for research.

A programming language is directly implemented on the Ethereum blockchain to run
distributed, unstoppable, and provable applications [25]. This includes smart contracts [26]
which can be used to realize distributed, autonomous applications and organizations [27].

Storj and MaidSAFE are also interesting concepts. They can be seen as blockchainbased,
distributed cloud services to store data and files. Coins are used to incentivise resource
providers who provide hard drive space and network bandwidth.

Namecoin is one of the first Bitcoin forks and is purposely built to store keyvalue pairs, in
the foremost case, this is being used to register domain (.bit) names without a central entity
like ICANN.

Steem is a blockchainbacked social media platform that pays internal steem value coins to
content provider and curators (e.g. through ‘commenting’ or ‘liking’ of content). Steem
combines concepts from social media with lessons learned from building cryptocurrencies
and their communities. An important key to inspiring participation in any community,
currency or free market economy is a fair accounting system that consistently reflects each
person's contribution. Steem is the first cryptocurrency that attempts to accurately and
transparently reward an unbounded number of individuals who make subjective contributions

to its community (https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf). Steem could provide a way to
incentivize scientific efforts within the scientific community [28].

Most altcoins work on their own blockchain. However, to make things really confusing, all
concepts could technically be implemented in one single blockchain, e.g. the Bitcoin
blockchain (For example, the Ethereum concept is also implemented in the Bitcoin
blockchain: here, it is called Counterparty).

Hyperledger project is a crossindustry collaborative effort, started in December 2015 by the
Linux Foundation to support blockchainbased distributed ledgers. The project aims to bring
together a number of independent efforts to develop open protocols and standards, by providing
a modular framework that supports different components for different uses. This would include a
variety of blockchains with their own consensus and storage models, and services for identity,
access control, and contracts.

The scalability of most blockchain implementations, e.g. the amount of transactions per time,
is limited compared to other, centralized technologies; the optimization of this scalability is a
part of ongoing blockchain research. Sidechains are one option (e.g. LISK). Another option
would be using standard database infrastructure with blockchain features on top of it
(BigchainDB).
Blockchain revolution and beyond blockchains

In the blockchain revolution, other systems that show characteristics of blockchain systems,
such as being distributed, without a single point of failure, decentralized and immutable, and
that are not based on a blockchain (the data structure), would exist. Actually, they could
play a much larger role in the long term than actual blockchain systems.

IPFS (interplanetary filesystem) “is a peertopeer distributed file system that seeks to connect
all computing devices with the same system of files. In some ways, IPFS is similar to the World
Wide Web, but IPFS could be seen as a single BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within one
Gitrepository.” Research data or publications that are being stored in IPFS would be available
without a centralized server and be very effectively distributed among reusers.

There are database systems that have blockchain characteristics. For example, BigchainDB is a
“big data distributed database and then adds blockchain characteristics decentralized control,
immutability and the transfer of digital assets.”
(https://www.bigchaindb.com/whitepaper/bigchaindbwhitepaper.pdf). Many other companies
exist providing similar solutions (e.g. ERIS).

Blockchain and the research cycle

In this section, we collect and propose applications of blockchain in science and knowledge
creation. We organize this around the research circle (Figure 3). Ideas and concepts that are
published are marked with a green X, while ideas that are newly introduced (to the best of
our knowledge) here by us (see publication date of the living doc or its earlier version) are
marked with a red Y. Copying of ideas and text from blog posts about blockchain for science
and its unattributed reuse in scientific journals has recently caused controversy [29]. We
expect established journals and authors to give appropriate credits in their upcoming articles
about blockchain for science that includes all means of current publication methods.

Ideas
● X Blockchains provide a ‘notarization’ functionality. Through posting a digest (e.g.
cryptographic hash) of a text, data, or general purpose file to a blockchain database,
it can be proven that this file or text existed at a certain time point. From this digest,
one cannot conclude on the topic or content of the text or file, but the owner of the
text or file can always prove that he or she was in possession of the file at a certain
time point. The time point is defined by the time the block was created in which the
digest was posted. This concept is also named ‘timestamping’ and
‘proofofexistence’ [15]. One easily accessible implementation can be found here
[30]. Researchers could post their ideas, research results, or anything else to a
blockchain system to prove their existence at a certain time point [31][32].
● X For innovations, instead of sending faxes to the patent offices, one could provide a
proofofexistence by posting it to a blockchain database. [33]
● X Lab books could post digests to a blockchain system to make them immutable by
means of timestamped entries.
Proposal

● X A study design can be preregistered to a blockchain, so that it would prevent the
arbitrary alteration of study design after the experiment [34,35]. This can also prevent
the arbitrary suppression of research studies from being published in case the results
do not meet certain expectations (publication bias) [36]. A registration of studies is
recommend to increase the value of research [5,9].

Experiment / data acquisition

● X Using blockchain technology, data integrity for approval studies for novel therapy
or drugs can be proven to auditors.
● Y All research data that is acquired could go to a blockchain database (Figure 3). All
data that is acquired during an experiment could then be available first to a certain
audience. It could become openly available and could be reused by other

researchers. However, this must not necessarily be the case as a researcher could
control who may access the data. For example, they could send research data (or
representations (e.g. hashes) of it) to a blockchain system after initial acquisition,
timestamp it, and still keep it secret up to a certain time point. After this time point
(e.g. final publication), they could then release cryptographic codes so as to make
the research data publicly available. This could address one issue that is a reason for
‘Why Most Clinical Research Is Not Useful’ and could restore trust in research, which
is currently low, because `research is not transparent, when study data, protocols,
and other processes are not available for verification or for further use by others.`
[37,38].
● Y Research data could be acquired by a ‘blockchainready’ sensor (microscope,
MRIscanner, WesternBlot scanner, etc.) in an internetofthings [39]. Such a sensor
would directly encrypt the data (potentially on a hardware level).

Figure 3: Large parts of the research cycle can make use of blockchain (yellow arch);
only the experiment itself cannot. From data collection onwards, the rest of the
research circle would then become immutable, comprehensible, and externally
provable. This would make larger parts of the research cycle open to scientific
selfcorrection and may make more research results reproducible, true, and useful.

● Y As soon as the data is stored in a blockchain database it can be rendered
immutable. This means that it cannot be manipulated without leaving a trace

(Published at the same time [40]). This can prevent arbitrary data manipulations, be it
conscious or inadvertently (e.g. by biased researchers). For example, researchers
can prove that they did not drop ‘outliers’ from the initially acquired datasets, or if so,
they would then need to explain as to why they dropped them. Research result
manipulations (resulting from whichever motivation it may be) at the level of the initial
raw data acquisition would require much more effort than data manipulation in a
postprocessing sheet which might only require changing a single digit or image.
This could improve scientific reproducibility and may make more research results
true.
● Y This would significantly extend the ideas and motivations of open data research,
since the integrity of the research data can be proven by means of blockchain.
Data management / analysis

● X Bitcoin and many altcoins use large amounts of computational power for the
proofofwork algorithms. The mining incentives could be set in a way so that some of
it is also being used for laborious scientific calculations [41].
● X The recommendation to reduce waste in science which reads: ‘Public availability of
raw data and complete scripts of statistical analyses could be required by journals
and funding agencies sponsoring new research’ [5,37] could be realized through
blockchain.
● Y The analysis of the data, postprocessing, and statistics can be protocolized in the
blockchain database and proven to peers. Potentially, statistical analyses and other
postprocessing steps can run on a blockchain system and become provable to the
research community.
● Y Above´s concepts allows anyone to propose (and demonstrate) a different way of
doing an analysis. This provides the opportunity for science to act more like a
"freemarket" where there may be a lab that is really good at producing hypotheses
and methodologies, another that has the capacity to run the experiments, and yet
another that excels in statistics (Zach Ramsay, personal comment).
Data sharing
● X Through blockchain databases, data can be stored and shared. Blockchain
technologies can provide a redundancy and availability of data, e.g. IPFS. This would
be a great way to realize open data research.
● X Associated cryptography can assure that the data is only available to certain
people, groups and from defined time points onwards. If subject anonymity is of
concern, this can be organized by means of using strong cryptography, e.g. in case
of healthcare data [42], even without a trustee.
● X Blockchain technology could also be used to ‘store’ grant money for research and
only release it after the publication and/or reproduction of research data/results [35].

Publication
● X Publications can be notarized in the blockchain, meaning they can be
timestamped.
● X A decentralized peerreview group (DPG) has been proposed to assure that quality
of research [43] or peerreview can be organized using blockchain [32].
● X Ideally blockchain systems will be used to timestamp and attribute publications
and especially lowthreshold dynamic publications [44], such as wikis, in which every
change can become timestamped and attribute in blockchain (many publications,
including personal communication with Lambert Heller).
● X Publications and comments can be shared on a socialmedia platform and likes,
comments, or other interaction can then result in payout of coins to incentivise
research result sharing [45].
● Y Blockchain systems make it possible to publish research anonymously or with a
second online identity and yet one could still get money or other research impact
appreciation for it [46,47]. This may make sense if very controversial results are
generated and scientists are afraid that this results are ‘too disruptive’. Due to the
fear of suppression by peers in the complex research social network, they might be
afraid to publish such research results or interpretations with their full name.
● Y In the form of a ‘whistleblowing’ function, this could also contribute to the internal
selfcorrection of scientific misconduct. If wanted, publications can be claimed later,
and the researcher can replace a name placeholder with their real name.
● Y Blockchain technology could be used to ‘sign’ anonymous publications with
credibility providing ‘signatures’. For example, the publication could be signed with
‘An english professor in physics with a Hirsch factor of 15’ or ‘A German medical
doctor’. A research institute could issue cryptographic certificates to do so [48,49].

Research evaluation
● X A blockchain (e.g. Namecoin) can be used to register and maintain unique
research identifiers like (ORCID) or links to publications or datasets (like DOI) [50].
● X A social network community that incentives content creation and curations can be
used to incentives idea, data and results research sharing [28].
● Y The quality of research is currently assessed using impact factor and other
altmetrics (like RG score, Altmetric). One has to trust the third parties issuing these to
correctly calculate such metrics. With blockchain technology and smart contracts, this
could change so that the way the metrics are being calculated is externally provable.
● Y A ‘research currency’ as an incentivization system to ‘make more published
research results true’ as described in [6] could be realized using blockchain
technology and without a trusted third party.
● Y Science reputation systems can be built using blockchain without a trusted third
party.
● X As such, a Decentralized Autonomous Academic Endorsement System has been
proposed and interesting implementation ideas and next implementation steps have
been disclosed [47].

Research funding
● X Prediction markets [51] to confirm results and to incentivise research could also be
used in science [52–55] and could be implemented on blockchain.
● X Blockchain could be used to realize a `moneyback` functionality for irreproducible
research results [40].
● Y New methods of research fund distribution could easily be realized with blockchain
technology and smart contracts. For example, a system in which researchers
redistribute 50% of their research money among peers [56] can be realized using
smart contracts [57]. Research funds could be sent completely anonymously, without
trusted third parties.
● Y Similar to a DAO (distributed autonomous organization)[27,58] that could
complement functions provided by companies, a DARO (distributed autonomous
research organization) can be used to complement research funding agencies.
● Y Concepts similar to colored coins could be used to relate research funds to some
conditions, even if the distribution mechanism is anonymous and ‘black boxed’ on
blockchain. For example, a funding agency could direct the research funds to certain
research fields, locations, or institutions. Only researchers that fulfill those
requirements would be able to claim those coins.

Challenges
One fundamental challenge of blockchain is the realworld/blockchain interface problem.
How can the blockchain world learn about realworld facts ? One instance of this problem is
the fact that one has to trust the researcher, sensors, etc. to correctly collect the initial
research data. Another example of this problem is the question as to how individual
researchers are recognized within the blockchain world and how their identity is confirmed.
This could be done by research institutes (often an institutional email is used to this end, or
indeed cryptographic certificates) or other entities that already have a large database of
researchers (e.g. online social networks or publishers).
The current legislation did not foresee the blockchain revolution. Many legal and tax
questions remain currently unresolved. These challenges are not specific to blockchain for
knowledge creation, but they also exist in other applications of blockchain technology, and
are an exciting, evolving field.
Conclusion
To make one thing clear, first of all, all abovementioned functionalities and concepts could
also be realized without the blockchain, if all participants are fully trustworthy and would act
purely in the overall aim to produce good scientific knowledge. However, the research world
has so many different stakeholders and developed cultures that might not be in best
alignment with their initial noble aim to produce scientific knowledge anymore. The
blockchain revolution is a game changer and hence chances are that this can be used to
break with inappropriate cultures. Indeed, blockchain technology could be used to ‘Increase

value and reduce waste’ [5], by opening the research cycle to scientific selfcontrol beyond
just the final publication and might therefore be a fix to the current reproducibility crisis in
science.

This publication is an extension of an earlier, pseudonymous, cryptographically signed and hashtimestamped publication [59].
The living document can be found here, including other instances and publications of this document. CCBY and attributed 1:1
figure and text reuse most welcome.

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