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Cryptocurrency based Psychedelic Research funding platform

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endlessness

endlessness

Established member
Moderator Lab expert
What do you all think of this idea?

Imagine this:

A platform where people can gather money for projects they create that are about ethnobotanical, pharmacological and related research, or psychedelic artistic endeavors or harm reduction projects.

All the funding is done anonymously through the use of bitcoin.

The project could be something international and that different members collaborative work on, or could be local.

Would be good if the people could set different `milestones` for their project, so if for example only a partial amount of the money is gathered at the end of the deadline, if the people running the project can still do part of the aim, they can get the equivalent part of the money, and the rest of the money is refunded.

I think it would be better if the projects would be somehow beneficial to others, not something for profit or self-oriented like "help me gather money to extract".

Some of the possible projects I can imagine featuring in the platform:

- An interactive databased with world map that has the psychoactive species found in different areas, identification information, chemical analysis data (all with sources), plus it is made in such way that member`s own test results when extracting or TLCing, can be added to the page
- Research into the solubilities of different alkaloids in their varying freebase and salt forms, in different solvents.
- Field trip to certain areas around the world to gather species and test them.
- Purchasing analytical instrument for helping analyse plants
- DMT-producing yoghurt
- Ethnobotanical living library/research center and community farm

etc :)

The most obvious choice of the moment for cryptocurrency is bitcoin, but maybe there are better implementations on the future like zerocoin.... The point is to create a really parallel direct mode of crowd contributions to psychedelic research with anonymity and without going through the usual vampire-like channels such as paypal and crowdfunding platforms that take in too large a percentage in the process and risk withholding your money without legitimate reason.
 
I think this is a wonderful idea. The only problem I see is quality assurance, some sort of rating system for reliability needs to be in place. I would be skeptical to send people I don't know on my dime to test plants without indication they are trustworthy.
 
Good point.

I think if it was directly related to the Nexus, then known members would more likely be trusted, but I`m not sure if it`s a good idea to have it directly associated with the Nexus.

Maybe this is not yet the time for such things but I am somehow trying to envision how our society could get organized if we make use of technology and connect people in a decentralized optimized way, with a conscious attitude, and go beyond the barriers established by previous generations and their own ways of life.
 
This idea is ahead of its time, TC.

But alas, it's like Communism, sounds great on paper, but when you try to apply it to humans (who have emotions and whatnot,) there will be major problems.

Bitcoins are still not (what I would call) user-friendly or accessible (this could be a good thing, but it's mostly just another obstacle people need to hop through.)
 
DeathMadeTangible said:
This idea is ahead of its time, TC.

But alas, it's like Communism, sounds great on paper, but when you try to apply it to humans (who have emotions and whatnot,) there will be major problems.

Bitcoins are still not (what I would call) user-friendly or accessible (this could be a good thing, but it's mostly just another obstacle people need to hop through.)
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I don't know what you're talking about: Bitcoins are super user-friendly as far as I'm concerned. No transfer fees, send them anywhere in the world, and all you need is a string of glyphs that is the address.

However, I have my doubts about this, just because it seems like it is very publicly using Bitcoins to, once again, go up against The Law, and we all know how understanding The Feds are about that kind of thing. I think we may need to wait for public opinion on psychedelics before we started with this.

I love the concept though.

Blessings
~ND
 
Good point.

I think if it was directly related to the Nexus, then known members would more likely be trusted, but I`m not sure if it`s a good idea to have it directly associated with the Nexus.
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This is the problem, definitely a Catch-22.

I like the idea although I'm not sure how workable it is right now.
 
I think this is an amazing idea and bringing up this idea is the first step to actualizing something like this.

The tlc kits seem to be strong step in the direction you are trying to go.

Another reason I like this idea is that the nexus is a really progressive community but progress is difficult without money to move things forward.

Maybe have this be a daughter site to the nexus sort of speak. That way we still can have the familiarity and trustworthiness of certain members actually heading up projects. Then on this daughter site non nexus members would have to team with nexus members until they were evaluated for the reliability?

I don't know just brainstorming, this sounds really good to me though because our community needs more action in the real world and although this site is a great engine for progress, I feel like what you are talking about would be a step in legitimizing some of the practices and beliefs here.

- An interactive databased with world map that has the psychoactive species found in different areas, identification information, chemical analysis data (all with sources), plus it is made in such way that member`s own test results when extracting or TLCing, can be added to the page

^^ sounds amazing
 
Excellent idea, I support fully. Definitely a way ahead of its time for supporting underground research!

To make it work in a productive and controlled manner, it's be quintessential to establish a "Research council" that manages and allocates the funds accordingly and also assesses the progress of the project. This is how it is done in real life - Research councils manage the funds (often coming from public donations, charities and/or investments of some sort)

The procedure is highly bureocratical but alas, a necessary evil to make sure that the best possible outcome is brought with the money. A research proposal has to be made by those seeking money describing the project and its implications, often including some preliminary data and outlining expectations.
 
It it a great idea, and it is probably ahead of its time. But! How are we ever gonna go ahead in time if we don't make stuff like this?

I'd love to participate in this ... If I knew how to make websites, I'd make one for this. And the ideas are great, I especially love the idea of the world map. And we could actually start doing this right now ...

All the information we have on this forum (ando n the internet) can be gathered quickly and can be added into some kind of database. I imagine a program with a world map that has all the psychoactive plants in its database, and clicking on any region of the world would show the user what kinds of psychoactive plantsa are present there. Or, the user could choose his/her favorite plant and check where in the world it grows. An option for searching where do plants with some psychoactive substance (like DMT) grow would be nice too.
 
Why not create a specific coin for this? i understand a little about cryptocurrencies and could point you in the right direction, however i can't create it my self... But i'm willing and know where to learn!
 
I just read this thread for this first time. Great points made by everyone and great ideas for projects, endlessness.

I dont think creating a dimethyl coin is ideal for this situation, crazypsychonaut.
From what I have observed over the years, coins take off because they are widely used and more trusted than the others.
Look at what happened to Kanye coin for example.
Kanye coin was based off of the litecoin, where 50% of coins are pre mined, except the people that made it had every intention of cashing in those coins and crashing the currency, which happened and a lot of people saw coming from the transaction logs.

Dogecoin is based off of the same system, except it's legitimate. They made a coin out of a meme. Because the meme was so widespread they had a huge user base already created which formed a unique community that went on to fund the winter Olympic Jamaican bobsled team, fundraisers for charity, and advertisements on a Nascar.

Bitcoin sounds like the best bet at this time for this as its slowly gaining some legitimacy from the public.
I love infunds idea about the research council. Having strong proposals is key.

The one problem that I have not seen addressed yet is how we plan to get this out there.
Could we strike a deal with MAPS and create some kind of shared platform for this that we use for this purpose? May be too political for them to get involved in, I dont know. Exposure would be big though.
If it's just us here at the nexus crowdfunding ourselves we're gonna have a bad time.

I apologize if any parts of that story were wrong, sometimes it's hard to follow all of this stuff!
 
There is the possibility of using the nexus for the purpose of generating a nexus coin?

I know it sounds like the premise for an April fools joke,
But If there were any definite projects to fund having a crypto currency generated by the nexus and it's members could be useful.

It's a bit of a gamble expecting bit coin to go up, but if there was a cache of nex coins worth like a hundredth of a bit coin wouldn't it actually make a big difference?

I only bring it up cause some crypto currency miners were talking about it in chat once.

Please ignore me if this is a bogus idea
 
Three reasons nexus coin shouldn't be bothered with in my opinion:
- Not enough users to make it worth anything
- Liability for the Nexus
- Bitcoin works for this purpose already. And some people have A LOT of Btc ;)


If you're serious about this give it a professional name, get a nice website set up with all of the proposals on it, make some HD videos explaining everything, try to partner with other organizations both for their research goals and their userbases.
Youtube, reddit AMA's, blog interviews, anything and everything to get it out there and get as much people in on it as possible. In the mean time you mods should get that council formed, or appoint those who will be in charge of the org off site of the nexus. Maybe if you reached your goals you could donate to charity, or plant a mimosa tree for every ten dollars or whatever.

I know some countries are more lenient with crypto transactions so that would also need to be taken into consideration. I haven't been following the market politics too closely lately to know where is good to establish this and where isn't.

Another idea is outline everything the nexus (or whatever this org is called) has done to further fortify legitimacy. Just some ideas, I would love to see this take off!
 
Crazy thought. But I started thinking along the lines of starting a Kickstarter project to gather money. And using that money to generate cash in a legitimate way.

For example, since the nexus has a lot of chemists. It may be an option to extract red spider lily and source Galantamine for the dreaming community. A lot of money in general health and vitamin stores on the internet. The truffel bussiness in Holland is pretty big too. I can imagine money to be made there. little projects like these that are fun to work on could generate sustainable income for psychedelic research projects in the future.

You could have a resort in a place where it is legitimate to do DMT and offer something different than Ayahuasca with Pharma-sessions, DMT massage etc. Apparently in Holland it is legal to have guided mushroom resorts.

You could refund the Kickstarter donations in exchange for coins that are usable in one of these facillities. So nobody lost anything. To be honest, I am for a self-created currency because that way the money can be distributed by a group of people that knows what they are doing and it becomes more of a business that deals in Entheogen research as well. But I think the preparation and intra-workings of these ideas might be a little too complex for any practical purposes.
 
Infectedstyle said:
Apparently in Holland it is legal to have guided mushroom resorts.
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That would surprise me, as magic mushrooms are now illegal in The Netherlands. The magic sclerotia aren't, anyway, so the guided resorts might be using those.
 
It sounds like a good idea!! as long as the research is carried out by people who are well educated in a related field. For instance, i wouldn't donate to find out out if a certain alkaloid had such and such properties and affected the brain in such and such way unless there was a chemist with at least a masters degree doing it. The biggest issue will be credibility, since psychedelics are still a sort of taboo in research, it is vitally important to have very credible people doing it IMO.

And that would then raise questions of identity and verification, which could then endanger the research. At this point it seems like we still need to shift public and political opinions to be a little more open to this stuff so any research does not get written off as poorly planned, executed, or interpreted. I understand many on here know a good thing or two about chemistry involving this stuff but i feel that, in this context, general knowledge without credentials to back it up sufficiently will be a major issue when trying to share results with the scientific community.

Another thing i feel would help this project go along much more smoothly and with more acceptance is if it started with things not so bad, just general research not involving psychedelic alkaloids and other illegal things, and then, once legitimacy and credibility is built up, into the more groundbreaking stuff that we all want to see happen. I think this approach could allow researchers to remain more anonymous if their alias has done openly accepted work before moving into the realm of entheogens. Just some ideas for this lovely proposal 😁
 
Infectedstyle said:
Crazy thought. But I started thinking along the lines of starting a Kickstarter project to gather money. And using that money to generate cash in a legitimate way.

[...]
You could have a resort in a place where it is legitimate to do DMT and offer something different than Ayahuasca with Pharma-sessions, DMT massage etc. Apparently in Holland it is legal to have guided mushroom resorts.

You could refund the Kickstarter donations in exchange for coins that are usable in one of these facillities. So nobody lost anything. To be honest, I am for a self-created currency because that way the money can be distributed by a group of people that knows what they are doing and it becomes more of a business that deals in Entheogen research as well. But I think the preparation and intra-workings of these ideas might be a little too complex for any practical purposes.
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A crypto-currency fund for collective Nexian endeavors is a powerful idea. The dutch truffle resorts you mentioned sound very intriguing to me. I have for some time wanted to start a Mushroom Monastery in a country it would be legal to do so (Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, possibly Brazil could work) that would allow entheogenists to take retreats with the purpose of having ++++ peak experiences in a safe controlled environment, without the Catholic trappings of the Santo Daime/UDV or Bwiti faith. It would be open to all faiths and would be expressly for inducing and studying ego death, and provide a safe haven for recovering from it afterward. A Nexian research fund could help spark ideas like this, but one problem with such a fund is that management of the money will be very contentious.

For a collaborative research fund like this the Nexus would be organizing itself like a cooperative, a research council would have to be organized like previously stated. We would have to have group consensus on allocation of funds and the directions of our research. How much much influence would donors have? Would large donors have greater pull in the projects chosen? Voting would be easy because of the poll software, but electing trustworthy dependable users to count votes, handle the money, etc. will be complicated. Over at the Longecity forums (a nootropic/transhumanist/life-extension community) Group Buys are a common thing but often end in disaster due to shady dealings and inertia. Also we would have to determine who exactly gets to vote on the projects; everyone at the Nexus, only the fund contributors, just the moderators, or what?

Even though the idea is full of complexities it seems like a logical step in the evolution of this community. A magazine was a great first step in the group consolidation of purpose and vision. An anonymous monetary fund for group actions on the real world seems the next step, this forum has hordes of members, some of them undoubtedly celebrities because of aya-mania, some of them probably rich. Without an anonymous way of supporting our research they would never donate having too much at risk. With such an avenue open I can easily see the Joe Rogans or Russell Brands of the world throwing a few thousand at crossbreeding Salvia to easily produce seed and live in temperate climates, or fund studies on universal traits between icaros, peyote songs, and Bwiti music to understand their visionary control properties, or funding studies on psychedelic telepathy. There are so many fascinating topics mainstream science won't explore that having a Fringe fund like for wildly controversial and innovative topics could lead to fascinating results. If nothing else it would speed up discoveries here, because for good or ill money is a direct catalyst for change. Great progress could be made on testing plant species for tryptamines especially, there are many thousands of untested species and we can't depend on Keeper Trout to pave the way (and buy the bricks) forever. Psychedelic pharmacognosy is probably the least funded of all natural sciences I would guess.
 
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