Hedge Fund Numerai Launches its Own Cryptocurrency

A hedge fund focused on artificial intelligence has launched its own cryptocurrency, underscoring the growing interest in applying Bitcoin -like technology to the financial markets.

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The San Francisco-based hedge fund Numerai today announced that its new virtual currency, Numeraire (NMR), will be the first cryptocurrency that is mined with artificial intelligence, which effectively turns Numerai into the first hedge fund with network effects.

Numerai was founded in 2016 by the 29-year-old South African Richard Craib and has recently managed to raise funds from big investors such as Renaissance Technologies, one of the world’s biggest money managers. The fund utilizes scientists and Machine Learning to further expand the investment opportunities and build algorithmic models that bolster future predictions.

Craib believes that cryptocurrency solutions will have a significant effect on the future of markets. Numerai pays its staff in bitcoins for building machine learning data models.

The founder and CEO of Numerai commented: “Numeraire is a cryptocurrency for the data science citizenry of Numerai, and it makes collaboration compatible with self-interest.”

“Numeraire solves coordination between Numerai and users, giving Numerai a limitless ability to expand while giving users ability control the stock market”, added Geoffrey Bradway, ex-Google Deepmind, now VP of Engineering at Numerai.