A few days ago someone installed the Cindicator app, signed up, and made their first forecasts. Nothing special, really. Except that this was the 100,000th analyst on Cindicator’s collective forecasting platform!

While this is an important milestone, it’s just the beginning. The Cindicator community of “intellectual investors” (people who contribute the product of their intellect rather than money) is growing and becoming even more diverse. We are moving towards asking a wider range of questions. Eventually, we’ll be able to create indicators not only for specific assets, but also for a wide range of major events that impact the markets and the world around us. Today we’ll talk about how it all started, who the analysts are, and where we’re going.

Token sale as the rocket fuel for community

In December 2015, we launched a platform that allowed users to make forecasts in just three to five minutes. The process of making a forecast was fast, simple and, most importantly, fun. Still, it took many months to get the first 10,000 analysts. These early adopters became the crucial initial element in the Hybrid Intelligence model, which combines the best of human and artificial intelligence.

The token sale in September 2017 was a major landmark that fuelled the growth and engagement of the community. The sale has attracted a lot of attention and the White List was many times oversubscribed.

A few months later, the crypto market capitalisation surged and it seemed like everyone and their dog was talking about Bitcoin. By December, the number of installs shot up dramatically. Some of these analysts signed up to try and win a share of the increased reward pool. Most have joined to learn more about the crypto market and to test their analytical skills.

Why analysts join Cindicator

Try to guess what the following have in common:

A prisoner

A little girl

A financier making over $10k a month

A millionaire captain of a freight ship

They’re all interested in crypto markets!

Some are learning about blockchain and cryptocurrencies to understand where they could apply their skills and knowledge in this new and fast-growing industry. Answering questions helps them discover new assets and projects. Some also keep track of major events — our team is continuously monitoring the markets and Cindicator’s questions reflect every significant market movement.

Some analysts happen to be active traders who use the Cindicator platform as a sort of a trading diary. The detailed statistics can help traders focus on assets in which they have a greater percentage of correct calls. Keeping regular records is useful for identifying biases in trading strategies. By answering questions in the Cindicator app they can also test more ideas even if their capital is already fully allocated.

A lot of analysts had zero knowledge about crypto before they started using Cindicator. Now some of them are real pros. The names in the top ratings are surprisingly consistent from month to month. We know that one analyst even used their Cindicator app track record to get a job at Goldman Sachs in New York!

For an important minority of analysts the markets are already part of their full-time jobs. Some work for specialised crypto funds. We also know several well-paid professional analysts who work for Wall Street firms and use the Cindicator app to keep tabs on their burgeoning blockchain assets. For market professionals, making forecasts with Cindicator could be a way of testing some of their contrarian ideas without having to openly defend their position. If you’ve read or seen Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, you will understand how difficult it can sometimes be to go against groupthink.

Painting a portrait of a Cindicator analyst

Apart from their interest in the markets, analysts have hardly anything in common.

The Cindicator community is truly global and there is no single mould that would fit everyone. Our analysts come from over 150 countries. It would be hard even to pick the most exotic place! We have residents of Greenland, Burundi, Cuba, and Vatican City, which is technically a country… Similarly, people of all ages make predictions with Cindicator apps — at one point a little girl was a top forecaster.

Why does this matter?

Having a highly diverse group of analysts ensures that their forecasts are not subject to the types of biases that might result from their geographic location or sociodemographic status. Professionals in downtown Manhattan, Silicon Valley and D.C. tend to think alike. They follow the same pundits and they attend the same conferences. As the result, they often believe the same things and it’s psychologically difficult for them to understand the significant yet subtle trends that create Black Swan events. People from other regions and different backgrounds bring additional perspectives and insights, helping to uncover new ideas.

More answers, more data

The community is not just bigger and more diverse, it is now also more engaged. This means each analyst answers more questions, generating a lot of data. Last month Cindicator analysts submitted over 400,000 predictions, which is more than 30 times higher than just six months ago.

This growth creates limitless opportunities for improving and refining the machine element of Hybrid Intelligence. We already have several dozens of data models that assess and assign different weights to forecasts, taking into account analyst ratings, performance for specific assets and many other factors. And we’re always testing new models.

The ever increasing volume of data is now being used to train the first neural network, which we launched in March. As we discussed, the neural network adds a third layer in our pipeline, identifying complex nonlinear relationships between different ML models. Neural networks learn on large data sets, so the more data they get, the more accurate they become. It is still at an early stage, but the results are already promising, showing on average a 20 percentage point increase in accuracy. And of course, we will eventually be able to add more neural networks of different kinds.

Where we’re going

While predictive analytics for financial markets is the first and most obvious use case for Hybrid Intelligence, our vision is far more ambitious.

We believe that the combination of human and machine intelligence could solve some of the biggest issues facing humanity. Allocating the world’s limited resources efficiently. Finding new decentralised governance structures. Alleviating environmental problems. Exploring outer space.

Again, this is just the beginning. Whether you’re one of the first 10,000 or the first 100,000 analysts, you are one of the early adopters of a new approach to decentralised decision-making. And if you’re still not with us, it’s a great time to jump in!

To join, simply sign up in the web app or download our iOS or Android app.

Have any questions? Let us know in the comments.