What is Numeraire?

Numeraire (NMR) is a cutting-edge cryptocurrency developed by the hedge fund Numerai. This platform uniquely integrates data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cryptography to empower researchers and data scientists in forecasting stock market trends. The Numeraire crypto project distinguishes itself by leveraging clean, regularized, and obfuscated datasets, enabling participants to build machine learning models without exposing sensitive information.

How Does Numeraire Work?

Numeraire crypto operates through a crowdsourced data intelligence system, collecting analysis to support Numerai’s predictive trading strategies in the stock market. The platform centers on two primary user engagement models: Numerai Tournament and Numerai Signals.

At its core, Numerai runs a traditional quantitative hedge fund regulated in the United States, taking both long and short positions in publicly traded companies. The fund maintains a market-neutral stance, aiming for profitability in any market environment by mitigating volatility and risk.

Participants design machine learning models using provided or acquired datasets and stake them with NMR tokens. These models help the platform rank equities, and once submitted, Numerai aggregates them into a Meta Model that drives the fund’s trading decisions. The obfuscated datasets are freely distributed to users, eliminating the high costs and restrictive licenses typical of premium financial data.

Where Is NMR Used?

NMR, an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, serves several functions throughout the Numerai ecosystem. The Numeraire token is primarily used for staking and burning during Numerai Tournaments and Signals, where data scientists commit their models using NMR.

Erasure Bay, an information marketplace built on the Erasure Protocol, uses NMR as its native token. Sellers must stake NMR to fulfill requests, and buyers can enforce seller integrity by burning staked tokens if commitments are not met.

Numeraire also acts as the digital asset for payments within the Numeraire network, tradable for fiat or other cryptocurrencies on major exchanges. Users stake NMR to predict which models will deliver superior performance and accuracy.

Numeraire Founders/History

Numerai was founded in 2015 by Richard Craib in San Francisco, California. Craib holds degrees in mathematics and economics from Cornell University and previously worked as a data scientist at an asset management firm before launching Numerai.

With Geoffrey Broadway, Joey Krug, and Xander Dunn, Craib published Numerai’s whitepaper on February 20, 2017. In August 2019, he also released the Erasure Quant whitepaper with James Geary and Jason Paryani.

The Numeraire crypto project secured over $26.5 million through five funding rounds between 2016 and 2021. Unlike most crypto projects, Numerai did not conduct an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Instead, it launched NMR on Ethereum’s mainnet in 2017, minting one million tokens distributed to data scientists based on their platform contributions.

Numeraire Tokenomics

NMR’s tokenomics have evolved significantly since launch. Since 2017, Numerai has exclusively raised capital by selling NMR tokens—not company equity—to specialized crypto investors.

Initially, Numeraire’s total supply was capped at 21 million, with a weekly release limit of 100,000 new tokens. One million tokens were allocated to data scientists according to their historical leaderboard rankings.

In May 2018, Numerai minted an additional 4 million NMR, 3 million of which were locked until 2028 via tournament staking, with the remaining million reserved for new airdrops and investor partnerships.

In July 2019, Numerai made a pivotal change by reducing NMR’s maximum supply from 21 million to 11 million and “burning the contract key.” As a result, the Numeraire token contract is now immutable—Numerai cannot mint additional NMR, ensuring the token’s scarcity and value within the decentralized market prediction ecosystem.

FAQ

What Is the Numeraire Cryptocurrency?

Numeraire (NMR) is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, utilized by Numerai—a hedge fund—to source AI-driven investment data. The token supply is capped at 11 million. Users stake NMR to make predictions and earn rewards.

Will Numeraire Go Up?

Yes, Numeraire is projected to rise. Forecasts indicate its price will reach $10.43 by December 3, 2025, reflecting current market trends.