[dzdt]

Some thoughts on the business model:

* traditional hedge funds have a problem with scaling: if you put more money in the same strategy returns go down. Numerai hopes to scale the number of strategies it employs by scaling the number of researchers participating.

* by providing researchers only opaque streams of data, they prevent researchers from leaving and competing directly. If you don't know how the data corresponds to the market, you can't replicate the trading at another fund. (Some big hedge funds like D.E.Shaw do the same!)

* researchers may still leave and compete indirectly, using the same algorithms on different market features. But by paying anonymously in bitcoin, Numerai may be hoping for the reverse, that programmers from other quant funds will anonymously moonlight for Numerai using their algorithms from those other funds.

* by being opaque with the data, Numerai keeps researchers from knowing the true value their strategies are providing. That information asymmetry is in Numerai's favor, letting them underpay even strong performers.