Steak is a web interface and smart contract that allow data scientists competing in the Numer.ai tournament to sell their submissions for Ethereum to other holders of Numeraire. Contracts are created by sellers on a quarterly basis in line with Numer.ai's weekly submission structure and resolve after twelve weeks (see calendar). Steak is differentiated from any other private agreement to sell Numer.ai submissions in that it uses Chainlink calls to Numerai's API to verify that the seller has upheld their promise to upload the correct predictions on time and stake a certain amount of their own Numeraire on the same model. If the seller fails to uphold their promise not only will their reputation be reduced but a fraction or all of the Ethereum you paid for their submission will be refunded to your account(see specifics on other pages) if you choose to contest the contract and the Numer.ai data interface confirms that the seller has failed to keep up their end of the contract.
There is a 1% fee on the Ethereum you get paid as the seller, so you do not get all of Ethereum the buyer pays. Ethereum gas prices are also very high which may make it hard for setting these contracts up to be worthwhile. Holding Numeraire like holding any crypto currency is highly risky and exposes you to a large amount of volatility (Numeraires prices have essentially doubled and then been cut in half over the past few weeks as I am writing this). This applies even more so for Numeraire since a company controls a large amount of the available Numeraire and gives the coin most of its value as a tool for datascientists. If Numerai the company was to fail or lose the trust of data scientists it would probably be enough to destroy almost all value Numeraire holds. On top of currency risk you must trust the modeling ability of a seller and the amount of stake (amount of Numeraire they are willing to lose) they put on their model. Numerai can destroy up to 25% of your staked Numeraire in one week if your submission performance is bad enough (this has happened to many stakers). Not only is the risk of entering the tournament high, but your knowledge to asses that risk is limited by what the seller discloses to you about their model and how honest they are about their confidence in it. Finally the Steak platform and smart contract have so far not been heavily tested, and could easily have bugs or exploits that could result in total loss of a buyer's refund or a seller's payment, or allow a buyer or a seller to completely scam the other party with damage only to their online (and possibly anonymous) reputation at risk. I could also give up on this project at any time and stop updating it, leaving you to hold your Numeraire speculatively, try to find a different way to buy submissions, or sell your Numeraire.
If you can stomach that entire last paragraph (losing your entire investment in an instant etc), then you may want to use Steak. I wont do the math since the numbers will change over time and there is plenty of subjectivity to be had, but Numerai continues to attract data scientists submissions and stakes due to the "crypto returns" (high risk high reward) they provide to stakers. For data scientists, you may choose to use Steak to supplement your own staking Numeraire, or to get an extra stream of income from your models in Ethereum.
Visit the Numer.ai Docs aswell as their forums or Rocket Chat to ask questions, and learn about how Numerai works. Then move to the "Buyer" or "Seller" tab to learn about using the Steak interface.
Click here
Sellers cannot acheive the sale of a model's submission using this page alone, instead they must first find a buyer who wishes to buy their model submission in a secure manner through Steak. The buyer and seller must make contact and exchange information through an external platform. A buyer needs an upload only API key for the seller's Numer.ai account so that they can submit their model's predictions on the seller's account.
To create a Steak contract listing you must have the MetaMask extension installed for your browser and have an account that is funded with enough ETH and CHAIN to deploy a contract. 0.6 CHAIN must sent to the Steak contract before it is locked so it is able to perform the contest function which audits the state of round submissions and issues a partial refund(based on fraction of contract weeks elapsed) to the buyer if the seller has failed to hold up their end of the deal.
There are three parameters that go into deploying a Steak contract, Model Name (the name of the model whos submissions are being sold), ETH Cost (how much Ethereum the buyer will pay to have you submit on their behalf), and NMR Stake Promise (The minimum amount of NMR the buyer wants you to stake on the same submission).
Steak contracts are long term agreements, they are for facilitating purchase of 12 rounds of Numerai submissions from a data scientist. You must get your buyer registed between Saturday 18:00 UTC and Sunday 24:00 UTC, so that you can lock the contract or kick someone who has signed up(only valid before Monday 14:00 UTC the same week the contract is entered). Below is a calendar of when different contract actions are valid for reference.
The seller Deploys the contract initially as discussed above. The seller has three actions they can take on a deployed contract that are all time sensitive and require that a buyer has registered to partake in the contract.
Click here
A buyer must seek out sellers on places like the Numer.ai forum, Numer.ai rocketchat, or platforms like Twitter to discuss pricing, how much you want to see the seller stake on their own model, send a model ID(found in the models menu of Numer.ai) and send a public and private API key with upload permissions only, so the seller can fullfil you predictions.
To enter a Steak contract listing you must have the MetaMask extension installed for your browser and have an account that is funded with enough ETH to pay for gas fees and the reward given to the seller upon completion of the contract.
Steak contracts are quarterly agreements which means you should be doing alot of work verifying you have a good understanding of the model and modeler you are paying for. You can attempt to cancel the contract (called contesting) at any time if something goes wrong like the seller stops submitting, doesnt stake on their model, or submits the wrong predictions (See the bell button to get notified by email when your contract becomes invalid). If you successfully contest a contract all some fraction of the Ethereum you paid will be refunded that is equal to the amount of weeks since the contract started divided by 12, so if you successfully contest the contract after one month, you will receive 2/3 of your ETH back and the seller will receive 1/3 of your ETH (ignoring the 1% fee taken for the developers when the contract begins)
The buyer can pay in the ETH cost to register their model name with a sellers contract so that the contract knows which models should be checked for equality in the case a contest of the contract is needed. If the seller does not submit equivalent predictions on their model and your model on time you may contest to receive a refund of a fraction or all of your ETH funds back into your MetaMask wallet as specified above. The buyer can also reclaim a contract if it is not locked by Monday 14:00 UTC following the weekend you entered the contract, which will refund you all the ETH you paid in minus the 1% fee, since the contract was never confirmed by the seller.
| First Week Valid Actions | Saturday After 18:00 UTC | Sunday Full UTC | Monday Before 14:00 UTC | Tuesday Full UTC | Wednesday Full UTC | Thursday Full UTC | Friday Full UTC | Saturday Before 18:00 UTC | 12 Weeks out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| For Buyer | Register Your Model | Register Your Model | Register Your Model/Round Close | Reclaim becomes valid if contract wasnt locked | Reclaim is valid forever if contract not locked | First Scores | Contest (Valid any week) |
Contest (Valid any week) |
|
| For Seller | Kick | Kick | Claim | ||||||
| Lock | Lock |
Chain transactions are sent through the MetaMask browser extension, you need the MetaMask extension to view contracts, and an account and currency to interact with them. Make sure to refresh the page after you have setup MetaMask. To get Kovan Test Network Ethereum and Chainlink (has no value and is only for testing) visit here(ETH) and here(LINK). See a video of how to get setup on Chrome here
