The Journal of Global Surgery (ONE) recently made a study related to prostate cancer publicly available for free. This was done via crypto and traditional micropayments, as the organization leverages permissionless use of bitcoin cash (BCH) to tear down paywalls blocking public access to critical information.
If you’ve ever seen the Aaron Swartz documentary “The Internet’s Own Boy,” you’ll know that those who attempt to bring truth to the masses by way of openly available information often suffer grave retaliation from vested interests. Activist and Reddit co-founder Swartz met an awful fate for simply trying to eliminate paywalls to vitally useful knowledge in academic journals.
But what if the world of academic and medical studies could be opened up voluntarily, by millions of people around the world, leveraging tiny amounts of crypto? This is the idea behind The Journal of Global Surgery (ONE)‘s model: crowdfund access to studies with micropayments, and once the costs are covered, set them free into the world for access by anyone and everyone.
The Journal of Global Surgery (ONE) leverages BCH to fund open access to medical studies. Source: Journal of Global Surgery.
Funding surgical studies with BCH
The publication makes a bold claim, saying it is the “first community funded, fair & sustainable peer-reviewed scientific journal.” The brainchild of Dr. Saqib Noor, the journal utilizes bitcoin cash (among other payment methods), and calls BCH “a borderless, permissionless peer-to-peer payment system” that makes negligible-fee micropayments possible, “ensuring equitable access to all.” Medical professionals and editors from around the world comprise the board of the journal.
The model is quite simple:
- No author fees for submission
- Peer reviewers receive BCH stipends for their work (regardless of acceptance or rejection of a manuscript)
- Low-cost, transparent manuscript publication
- Micropayments of $0.10 “chip away” at initial paywall
- Once costs are covered, “article transitions to open access”
Recently made available for free, open access on the site is a study on implementing a prostate cancer clinic in resource-limited Zambia, for example. The Bitcoin Cash Foundation (BCHF) detailed in a news post that “the research was unlocked after readers chipped in micropayments as low as $0.10 — proving that even niche medical knowledge can bypass traditional paywalls.”
Still from the documentary “The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz,” which details the life and times of the activist and Reddit co-founder, whose goals were similar to those of the Journal of Global Surgery.
Political controversy, crypto, and the voice of the individual
Noor, who founded the related initiative One.Surgery, believes that healthcare shouldn’t be reserved only for a select few. The One.Surgery website declares: “We believe every person in the world should have access to universal, safe surgery. There is just too much imbalance currently that needs addressing urgently.”
The Journal of Global Surgery combines two controversial worlds — medicine and cryptocurrency. Inevitably tied to politics these days, both fields have seen related discourse become hotly polarized, whether it’s talk of Donald Trump being a so-called “pro-bitcoin” president, or families, friends, and hospital staff members divided over the great disease hysteria launched in 2020.
However, decentralization of information sources, coupled with low-fee crypto funding could bring more balance and sensibility — and less statist politics — to both fields. In this way, whether one is weighing in on the ongoing killings in Gaza, or trying to get to the bottom of what really causes an illness, low-fee jailbreaking of critical info via cryptocurrency micropayments might bring drowned-out, individual voices of truth to the forefront.
The Journal of Global Surgery is in beta testing mode, currently. The publication notes: “During the beta release, we anticipate on-going and extensive upgrades and improvements to be made, as well as bugs. We invite the community to use this platform and help us to improve the journal during this beta release period.”
