Cryptoeconomics is poised to reshape how we fund ideas and curiosity at the earliest stages, but only if we creatively explore that potential. Matt Stephenson is helping to make that future. Through his writing and experimentation, he's showing us all a better way to think about NFTs for science.

Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty starts with a niche and goes wide. His specialty is cave fishes, which he deftly connects to bigger ideas about evolution and deep time. We talked about his experience as a Program Officer with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and his current focus of building better scientific infrastructure around the world.

José Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente is an independent researcher famous for his deep dives into questions and topics on his blog Nintil.

Dr. Chiara Franzoni has built a career researching the economics of science. Improving the funding system, she hypothesizes, requires us to first establish a common understanding of "risk" in science. She recently co-authored a landmark paper to address this keystone issue.

Dr. Elizabeth Iorns and her company, Science Exchange, have sped up the process of discovery by creating a platform that matches scientists to laboratory services and providers. They embolden researchers through contractual standardization and an easy-to-use project management interface — freeing science from unnecessary bureaucracy and giving everyone access to industrial science infrastructure.

Ben Reinhardt is working to enable a sci-fi future, faster. His in-depth research process spans both science and technology and his "intellectual exhaust" — tweets, blog posts, interviews — are wonderful resources for the rest of us. We go deep on his process as well as his essay: How DARPA Works.

Paula Stephan wrote the book on science funding. Her work has illuminated the flows of funding and how those incentives dictate research directions and academic careers. More recently, she's looking at the relationship between novelty and risk taking (or the lack thereof).