How Endaoment's Modular API Opened New Possibilities for Decentralized Science

A reflective analysis on the progress and potential of the Endaoment x Research Hub partnership.

The Challenge

The pace of scientific progress is fundamentally constrained by how quickly researchers can secure funding. Traditional grant processes— originally designed for thoroughness—have become bottlenecks that can double the time it takes for breakthrough research to reach society. Early-career researchers are particularly disenfranchied in the current system. Only 1-2% of first-year PhDs ever achieve professorship, largely because established researchers continue to capture the lion's share of funding.

Research Hub is a decentralized science (DeSci) platform built to democratize research funding, founded by scientists who experienced the frustrations of traditional funding firsthand. The platform enables anyone to propose, fund, and peer-review scientific research in the open, bringing transparency and speed to a system that desperately needs both.

The Situation: Research Hub had built a community of donors eager to fund cutting-edge science, but faced a critical infrastructure gap that threatened to stall their vision.

• Universities (which are 501c3 nonprofits) couldn't accept cryptocurrency donations—and most didn't have the bandwidth or interest to start
• Even the few crypto-friendly institutions hesitated due to compliance concerns, bias considerations, and risk evaluation requirements
• Traditional funding timelines of 9-15 months made it impossible to respond quickly to emerging research opportunities
• The platform's native token (RSC) created additional complexity for institutional recipients

"We basically had donors in crypto and cash who wanted to fund researchers at institutions, and we went and talked to the institutions... a lot of the time they said, 'We can't take that. We don't even know how to accept cryptocurrency.'"

— Tyler Diorio, Chief of Staff at Research Hub

The Solution

Research Hub discovered Endaoment through organic conversations on social media—when Jesse Pollak and Dan Romero were discussing crypto philanthropy on Farcaster. The team immediately recognized Endaoment as the missing piece of their infrastructure.

"Endaoment, stood out as the very obvious option. We saw what you built and we were like, 'Oh, this is exactly what we were looking for.'"

— Tyler Diorio, Research Hub

Research Hub partnered with Endaoment to bridge the gap between crypto-native donors and traditional academic institutions—converting digital assets into tax-deductible grants that universities could easily accept. With over $100 million in gifts and donations processed, Endaoment brought both the infrastructure and the institutional credibility Research Hub needed.

Integration Process:

Endaoment's modular API allowed Research Hub's team to integrate charitable giving infrastructure without building it from scratch—a critical advantage for a fast-moving startup.

• Technical integration completed in 1-3 weeks as a sprint feature led by Research Hub's tech team
• Flexible API endpoints integrated directly with Research Hub's existing fundraising platform
• Seamless handoff process for donor information, university details, and grant specifications

How It Works:

• Researchers submit "Pre-Registered Proposals" on Research Hub, detailing their methodology and analysis plans
• Donors contribute fiat or crypto into the native Research Hub token $RSD to then fund various projects on the platform
• Endaoment facilitates the donations and converts RSD contributions to university-compatible grants
• Funds arrive as discretionary research funding in US Dollar, giving researchers flexibility in execution

Supported Contributions:

• RSC token donations
• Other cryptocurrency donations (ETH, stablecoins)
• Traditional fiat contributions
• Nonprofit-to-nonprofit transfers

Grantmaking to Research:

• Direct grants to university research accounts
• Global reach across US and UK institutions
• Full range of research areas—including topics difficult to fund through traditional NIH routes

"What made it really nice is every time we have to interact with a university, Endaoment is very responsive. I fully trust you guys to be a strong line of communication that represents Research Hub in a way that is positive."

— Tyler Diorio, Research Hub

The Impact

The partnership has delivered results across three critical dimensions: speed, institutional access, and research diversity.

Outcome 1: Unprecedented Speed to Funding

"The whole process was extremely smooth... the funds were in scientists hands in under a month."

The partnership has compressed funding timelines from months to weeks. Traditional NIH grants can take 9-15 months from application to funds-in-hand—2-3 months just to write the proposal, 4-5 months for review committees to convene, and another 3-4 months for fund routing. With Endaoment handling the conversion and grantmaking, Research Hub researchers now receive funding in 3-4 weeks on average.

This speed matters beyond convenience. As Tyler Diorio explains: "The pace of technology and progress in society is largely dependent on how fast research is done. The funding timeline lag doubles the pace that we can actually bring science to technology. It's one of the most important bottlenecks to solve."

"Speed is a huge benefit. Just getting the funds to drop into their University quicker... that's what every researcher talks about."

— Jeffrey Koury, President, Research Hub Foundation

Outcome 2: Opening Doors to Institutional Partnerships

"The ease and flow of working with Endaoment actually helped anchor us and give us credibility with Stanford University as a whole."

The first major fundraise—$25,000 for Dr. Jason Tucciarone's fentanyl research at Stanford—created ripple effects throughout the institution. Endaoment's customer service—getting on the phone with Stanford and their track record of facilitating donations to the university—helped add confidence in Research Hub as they were developing their own relationships with the institution's researchers. The Stanford Department of Psychiatry's fundraising team, hearing about Research Hub from both donors and researchers, gained further confidence in the platform and pushed to integrate it into their standard pipeline.

"What really resonated when I was talking with the team at Stanford was just the fact that Endaoment was so involved with the interaction and communication with the Stanford department. They felt very comfortable."

— Jeffrey Koury, Research Hub Foundation

Since then, the partnership has expanded dramatically:

• 11 universities now participating, including Stanford, Cambridge, USC, UC Davis, UCSD, UC Irvine, University of Sussex, Iowa State, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the Wolfram Foundation
• $890k moved to researchers through Endaoment since April 2025
• 11-12 fundraisers successfully completed
• Stanford's major gifts division received a full presentation on the Research Hub + Endaoment partnership
• The Chair of Stanford's Department of Psychiatry has expressed interest in adding it as a formal pipeline for fundraising

"Between hearing about Research Hub through a donor and through Jason Tucciarone's lab—coming from both ends—they felt a lot more confident in Research Hub as a platform."

— Jeffrey Koury, Research Hub Foundation

Outcome 3: Funding Research That Traditional Grants Won't Touch

"You can fund any kind of study. It's not pigeonholed to just the ones that are in the spotlight."

By providing a seamless path from crypto donations to university research accounts, Endaoment has enabled Research Hub to fund research that might never survive traditional grant committee review—not because it lacks rigor, but because it explores unconventional territory. The tax-deductible donation route also removes perceived third-party bias, ensuring researchers can act independently of funders' expectations.

Notable funded projects include:

• Fentanyl addiction research at Stanford, which has since secured follow-on grant funding
• Chameleon neuroscience research by Dr. Nicholas Denami at Stanford, who established an entirely new chameleon section in Stanford's vivarium
• Water quality independent testing across major US cities, funded by a VC seeking third-party academic verification
• Consciousness and psychedelics research through DMT Quest, a nonprofit that has routed approximately $500,000 through the platform for studies that would struggle with traditional NIH funding—made possible by Endaoment's ability to facilitate nonprofit-to-nonprofit transfers

The sweet spot has proven to be $25,000-$100,000 grants—funding that's transformative for early-career researchers but often falls between the cracks of major institutional funding. Yet the platform also attracts established scientists at the highest levels of academia: tenured professors and even endowed chairs have received funding through Research Hub and Endaoment, lending additional credibility to the model.

"I'm really excited about these 25k to 50k nuggets going to really hungry early-career researchers. You won't know what they're going to produce, but they're really hungry, and they'll produce something within a year or two that's going to pay dividends later."

— Jeffrey Koury, Research Hub Foundation

Looking Forward

For Research Hub, Endaoment has become essential infrastructure that enables their vision of democratized research funding to become reality.

"I think Jeff and I are so passionate about this because Endaoment truly did solve some of our problems, and you have just been a pleasure to work with."

— Tyler Diorio, Research Hub

By requiring pre-registration of research proposals, Research Hub is also tackling the reproducibility crisis that wastes an estimated $200 billion annually. As Jeffrey Koury notes: "Irreproducible research is like inflation—a hidden tax. You don't really see that it's wasting funds, but it really is."

The partnership continues to expand, with conversations underway about a possible fiscal sponsorship by Endaoment for Research Hub that could cover independent researchers and deeper integrations with university development offices. For the Research Hub team, the vision is clear: democratize access to research funding while maintaining—and even improving—scientific rigor.

"We're trying to build the rails to move faster, but never sacrifice quality. Sunshine is the best medicine—getting everyone's eyes on everything ahead of time, reviewing it before the studies are even done."

— Tyler Diorio, Research Hub

About Research Hub: Research Hub is a decentralized science platform that enables open access publishing, pre-registration of research proposals, and community-driven research funding.
Learn more at researchhub.com.

About Endaoment: Endaoment is a tax-exempt community foundation built on Ethereum, enabling tax-deductible donations of cryptocurrency and other assets to any of 1.8 million nonprofits. Through its modular API, Endaoment empowers builders and businesses to integrate charitable giving infrastructure into their own platforms. Learn more at endaoment.org.