Numeraire
NMR
Evaluation Score
Overall rating on a scale of 0-10
Dimension Breakdown
AI Analysis
Comprehensive evaluation of the token
Numeraire (NMR) is the native staking utility token for Numerai's crowdsourced machine-learning hedge fund. The protocol demonstrates a genuine, operational use case with live utility where data scientists stake tokens on prediction models with burn mechanisms for poor performance and capped reward distributions. Tokenomics are structurally sound with an 11M hard supply cap and active buyback programs. Security is supported by a clean operational record without protocol-level exploits, a formal bug bounty program, and past smart contract audits from reputable firms including Trail of Bits and New Alchemy (though audits have aged since 2019). The project's primary limitations include centralized corporate governance under Numerai Inc. without a DAO structure, narrow ecosystem utility limited to platform staking, and modest community engagement metrics. No qualifying red-flag events were identified.
Development Activity
Code updates and developer engagement
Community Support
Social media presence and community engagement
Tokenomics
Supply, distribution, and utility
Market & Use Case
Value proposition and competitive landscape
Team & Governance
Team background and project governance
Security & Audits
Security history and audit status
About Numeraire (NMR)
Numeraire (NMR) is an ERC-20 utility and staking token for Numerai, an artificial intelligence-driven crowdsourced machine learning hedge fund founded in 2015. Operating on the Ethereum blockchain, the token launched in 2017 without an initial coin offering (ICO) and was designed to coordinate and incentivize data scientists building financial market prediction models.
The token's primary use case is tournament staking on the Numerai platform. Data scientists stake NMR on the performance of their machine learning models; accurate predictions earn NMR rewards from a distribution capped at 100,000 NMR weekly, while inaccurate models have their staked tokens burned. NMR has a strictly capped maximum supply of 11 million tokens and experiences deflationary pressure from performance-based staking burns as well as targeted buyback programs managed by the platform.
Governance and operations are centralized under Numerai, Inc., which manages the treasury, token buybacks, and reward distributions without an on-chain decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Smart contracts for the protocol were audited by New Alchemy in 2017 and 2018, and by Trail of Bits in July 2019, with Numerai maintaining an ongoing bug bounty program. While the protocol has experienced no smart contract exploits, a third-party social engineering incident occurred in August 2017 when fraudsters impersonated staff via Slack to execute a phishing scam with a fake airdrop. The asset's utility remains largely concentrated within the Numerai tournament staking system.