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Key people at CrunchDAO.
CrunchDAO is a decentralized marketplace that connects data scientists and machine learning engineers with financial institutions to build predictive trading models and extract actionable market insights. Operating as a decentralized autonomous organization, the platform allows quantitative researchers globally to compete in solving complex data problems submitted by hedge funds, asset managers, and proprietary trading firms. The decentralized network currently comprises a growing global community of over 10,000 software engineers and approximately 1,200 PhDs who earn CRNCH cryptocurrency tokens in exchange for developing successful algorithmic models. Token holders also receive governance rights to help direct the future development of the underlying protocol. In October 2025, the organization successfully raised $5 million in a strategic funding round co-led by prominent institutional investors Galaxy and Road Capital. CrunchDAO was originally founded by cryptocurrency researchers Jean Herrell and Philipp Wassibauer.
Key people at CrunchDAO.
CrunchDAO is a decentralized protocol and research collective that harnesses collective intelligence from thousands of machine learning engineers, data scientists, and quants to solve complex ML challenges, particularly in finance, through tournament-based competitions.[1][4][6] It connects over 10,000 global experts—including 1,200+ PhDs—with organizations via secure, privacy-preserving challenges, delivering superior predictive models for applications like asset pricing, portfolio management, cancer research, and real-time financial forecasting.[4][6] Backed by $10M in funding, CrunchDAO's products include Crunch Hub for competitions, Coordinator Nodes for enterprise control, Mid+One Engine for low-latency predictions, and Crunch Engine for ML orchestration, enabling clients like global investment banks and the Broad Institute to achieve breakthroughs such as 17% better cross-sectional asset pricing.[4][6]
The platform democratizes AI by challenging Big Tech's closed models, fostering meritocratic collaboration via Web3, and turning crowdsourced models into recurring revenue streams for contributors while providing enterprises with unbiased, adaptive insights.[2][5][6]
CrunchDAO emerged as a Web3-powered research collective, co-founded by figures like Benjamin Gabay (Chief Marketing Officer), focusing on uniting quantitative traders and data scientists in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).[7] It leverages tournament-based frameworks, such as weekly prediction competitions, to build market-neutral trading strategies and predictive models, evolving from financial forecasting to broader ML challenges.[1][7]
Key milestones include raising $5M for Crunch Lab (its core protocol connecting 10,000+ experts) and another $5M to scale decentralized AI research, reaching $10M total funding.[2][4][6] Early traction came from real-world deployments like Mid+One for mid-market pricing and partnerships (e.g., io.net for decentralized compute), alongside launching CrunchDeSci in 2023—a platform for collaborative, IP-protected open science using GIT and IPFS.[3][6][7] This evolution shifted from siloed finance research to a permissionless DAO ecosystem.[4][7]
CrunchDAO rides the decentralized AI and Web3 convergence, addressing traditional finance's biases, transparency gaps, and Big Tech's closed AI dominance by enabling open, global talent access amid rising demand for adaptive predictive intelligence.[1][2][6] Timing aligns with AI's trillion-dollar market growth, crypto AI events like AI:CON 2024, and needs for resilient tools in volatile markets—fueled by decentralized compute partnerships like io.net.[1][3]
It influences the ecosystem by pioneering DeSci (decentralized science) via CrunchDeSci, combating academic IP silos with immutable, collaborative research; powers real-time finance and healthcare via crowdsourced models; and transitions to permissionless DAO governance, expanding ML to enterprises without borders.[4][6][7]
CrunchDAO is positioned to lead open AI infrastructure, with Phase 3-4 roadmap delivering permissionless onboarding, MPC privacy, and integrated Crunch Engine for production workloads—unlocking pay-per-use models and enterprise stacks.[4] Trends like decentralized compute, regulatory pushes for transparent AI, and explosive DeSci adoption will accelerate its growth, potentially dominating crowdsourced intelligence for trillion-dollar sectors.[3][6][7]
As it scales from finance to multi-domain ML, CrunchDAO could redefine talent markets, evolving from protocol to essential layer—empowering the world's best minds to outpace centralized giants, just as its collective approach has already proven in production.[1][6]
