Pump.science and Hedgehog Markets have teamed up to foster decentralized science-focused betting contracts as the DeSci sector gains traction.

According to a Jan. 8 announcement, Pump.science and Hedgehog Markets will enable bettors to speculate on laboratory mice undergoing experiments aimed at increasing human life expectancy.

Pump.science is a blockchain research project focused on disrupting traditional academia by funding scientific initiatives and launching tokenized protocols. The project is backed by the Solana Foundation, which supports innovative ventures within the blockchain space.

A blog post from Pump.science revealed that Hedgehog Markets users can place bets on mice each week, wagering on how long each rodent can stay on a rotating rod. The endurance tests will be conducted over two months, with each mouse given a unique name.

Each week, mice are treated with potential life-extending compounds and undergo endurance testing. Participants can access video footage of the individual mice, preliminary data, and insights from past experiments to inform their predictions on which mouse will stay on the rotarod the longest.

Pump.science blog post

Benji Leibowitz, founder of Pump.science, remarked that live streams of mouse longevity tests would introduce “a new and more engaging participation model of scientific discovery” through Hedgehog Markets.

Hedgehog Markets offers betting contracts to predict real-world events like politics, sports, and crypto prices, much like Polygon-based Polymarket.

Pump.science is a project attached to the growing DeSci sector valued at over $2 billion. Teams like BIO Protocol boast backing from Binance, with leaders like Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin, and Maelstrom boss Arthur Hayes supporting DeSci as a major crypto narrative in 2025.