On Good Friday, we’re reminded: some things must break before renewal begins.
In collaborative intelligence systems, the same holds true; ideas, institutions, and models are tested before they’re trusted.
This week, we witnessed more of that process unfold. Let’s dive into what happened this week at Crunch ↓
Cruncher Spotlight: Felipe Bivort Haiek
A top 10 performer in the Broad Autoimmune Challenge #1, Felipe brings years of applied biomedical ML to the table.
His approach? EfficientNet + Spearman loss — capturing complexity with elegance.
Cruncher Spotlight: Anurag Ranjak
A PhD student at Biozentrum, University of Basel, Anurag stood out in Challenge #1 with a clever twist: aligning image and gene expression latent spaces using dual autoencoders and UNI2 embeddings.
Broad #3 Extended to April 30
The final phase of the Autoimmune Disease ML Challenge is still live.
Rank genes that help detect early-stage colon cancer in IBD patients — your findings will be validated on real tissue by Broad Institute scientists.
CrunchDAO x Phala Network Partnership
CrunchDAO has joined forces with Phala to bring confidential compute to decentralized AI.
Crunchers’ models can run privately in secure TEEs; encrypted, tamper-proof, and owned entirely by their creators.
Datacrunch Leaderboard Update
New week, new alpha. Check the latest leaderboard to see who’s rising.
Solana Incubator: Demo Day 2
At Solana Incubator Demo Day, CrunchDAO’s Dr. Peter Cotton demonstrated how Crunch unlocks access to talent and data across borders with models built by thousands, not dozens.
Twitter Space Recap: Crunch x Ionet
Missed the live session? In our recent Space, we explored how Ionet’s decentralized compute supports CrunchDAO’s growing demand for scalable, secure infrastructure — making high-performance predictive modeling more accessible than ever.
Coinference Dubai: Speaker Drop
Founder Jean Herelle will speak at CoinferenceX 2025 (April 28–29), sharing how CrunchDAO’s distributed model network is reshaping quant finance.
Hub71 Fireside Chat
Jean joined founders and VCs at Hub71 to discuss how startups are navigating macroeconomic headwinds, capital shifts, and global uncertainty. Video will be out SOON!
Podcast: “Building a Palantir with Zero Employees”
Jean joined the DeFiPodcast to dive into CrunchDAO’s vision, the power of diverse modeling, and how the DAO protects both data and creators in a trustless world.
Reminders
If you made it till the end of this newsletter, here’s one exciting update for you! A new crunch is coming very soon…so stay tuned.
Plus…
• Broad #3 deadline: April 30
• Phala integration live
• We’ll be at token2049
For questions or collabs → Join us on Discord.
Until next week, keep building models that matter!