Redesigning Ethereum’s Most Used Token

We’ve created one of the best tokens on Ethereum. And now we’re cutting the supply by ~50% and giving up control. Introducing NMR 2.0.

Very few people are using Ethereum. Even when people are using an Ethereum application, they’re not necessarily using a new token. When you buy a CryptoKitty, you’re paying in ETH. When you trade on an exchange using the 0x protocol, you don’t need the ZRX token. The fact is, most Ethereum tokens are terminally useless.

Here’s the good thing about Numerai’s NMR token: people are using it.

NMR stakes — the number one staking token on Ethereum

Here are all the bad things:

1. NMR is centralized
2. NMR is an application not a protocol
3. NMR token has no governance rights
4. NMR use is limited to Numerai data scientists
5. NMR can be diluted if Numerai mints millions of new NMRs

These are all bad so we are going to fix every one of them with Erasure.

Erasure

Last month, we announced Erasure. It is a new decentralized data marketplace. It allows anybody to upload data, stake it with NMR, build a reputation, and earn money.

Erasure takes everything that Numerai has been doing, and opens it up to the world on a decentralized protocol. The idea is not just to increase the usage of NMR, or to solve Numerai’s problems, but to create a radical new kind of data marketplace.

The biggest risk in launching any new marketplace is not having enough buyers or sellers to get the ball rolling. But on Erasure, the Numerai community is ready to provide the first data feeds and Numerai will be a major buyer on day one.

All of Erasure will be built on our token, NMR. We have recently hired a team to work exclusively on Erasure, with experience from Bridgewater, ConsenSys and Polymath. To do it right, they’re making some big changes to NMR.

A New NMR

1. Erasure decentralizes NMR. This means that the NMR smart contract will no longer be controlled or upgradable by Numerai.
2. NMR will no longer be a token to power Numerai’s hedge fund. Erasure turns it into a protocol. This means anyone can use NMR and build on top of Erasure, from sports prediction platforms to journalism.
3. Erasure will be controlled by all NMR owners. NMR becomes a governance token.
4. Erasure creates thousands of new use cases for NMR. Today, only Numerai’s data scientists need NMR. With Erasure, every data provider and every data buyer will need NMR.
5. We’re going to end our ability to mint any more NMR. And to prevent dilution, we are cutting the supply of NMR by ~50% from 21 million to 11 million.

We’ve taken a contrarian path and prioritized the usefulness of our token above its initial decentralization. As a result, we’ve created something rare: a token that makes sense and is being used. And now, Numeraire will be even better, more versatile, and will be controlled by the people it was made for.

Sign up to receive updates on Erasure on erasure.xxx.

Ask me anything on Reddit tomorrow. I’m doing an AMA on r/ethereum on 12/4/2018 at 11am California time. See you there.

Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase and Richard Craib, founder of Numerai introduce Erasure.