CrowdCent and Starkiller Capital Launch Market-Neutral Stat-Arb Vault; Waitlist Opens at TOKEN2049 Singapore

SINGAPORE, 7 October 2026

CrowdCent, the crowdsourced machine-learning challenge for crypto markets, and Starkiller Capital today announced the upcoming launch of the CrowdCent vault, a market-neutral statistical arbitrage vault that turns the collective intelligence of competing data scientists into a traded long/short book. The vault's waitlist opens tomorrow, 8 October, during the team's TOKEN2049 presentation (11:00 AM SGT), with the vault expected to open for deposits relatively shortly after the conference. The strategy is capacity constrained, and the vault will admit depositors from the waitlist as capacity becomes available.

How it works

Every day, data scientists in the CrowdCent Challenge rank roughly 180 Hyperliquid perpetual futures on expected 10- and 30-day relative returns. CrowdCent blends those rankings into a single meta-model, weighted toward models with demonstrated live skill and unique signal. The vault holds the top-ranked names long and the bottom-ranked names short, sized so net exposure stays at zero.

The team behind it

CrowdCent's founders are ex-Millennium researchers and Numerai Grandmasters who have competed and staked in Numerai's tournament since 2019. Their Numerai crypto model has posted a +1,589% all-time staked return (tournament results, not a fund track record). The CrowdCent meta-model has scored above the median Challenge model on 84% of days, with a 0.143 mean rank correlation on the 30-day horizon. In simulation, the simplest version of the book returned +19.5% at a 1.39 Sharpe with a -5.6% maximum drawdown, beating 100 out of 100 randomly constructed books. With Starkiller Capital's risk and portfolio construction applied to the same signal, the simulated book returned +27% at a 1.82 Sharpe and 10.3% volatility.

Risk by construction

The vault targets zero net exposure with no structural beta, sector, or momentum tilt, hard drawdown limits with an automated kill switch, and margin sized for worst-day moves with auto-deleveraging. Vault mechanics are on-chain deposits and withdrawals in an offshore structure.

The announcement

The pre-deposit waitlist opens during the CrowdCent x Starkiller Capital presentation at TOKEN2049 Singapore on 8 October at 11:00 AM SGT. Investors can join the waitlist at crowdcent.com/vault. Because the strategy is capacity constrained, waitlist members will be admitted as capacity becomes available. Data scientists can enter the underlying competition at crowdcent.com/challenge, where USDC and NMR rewards are paid for live performance.

"The raw data coming out of the Challenge keeps getting better, and it should only accelerate from here," said Jason Rosenfeld, Co-founder and CEO of CrowdCent. "The modelers are building with better AI every month, which makes the competition sharper, the aggregate data richer, and the meta-model stronger. It is collective intelligence built on the best new technology available, and we are excited to keep growing the community behind it."

"The edge is not one secret model. It is a system that produces good models every single day," said Leigh Drogen, CIO and Founding GP of Starkiller Capital, the vault's manager. "Our job is the unglamorous part: sizing, risk, and making sure the thing survives contact with real markets. We are really excited to give the market access to this strategy through the vault."

About CrowdCent

CrowdCent runs an open daily competition in which data scientists rank crypto perpetuals; the blended meta-model powers a market-neutral book. The Challenge has drawn 65+ active participants and 28,000+ submissions, with free data, a public leaderboard scored on Hyperliquid prices, a portfolio simulator, and Cloud GPUs for training.

About Starkiller Capital

Starkiller Capital is a quantitative digital-asset manager founded in 2021, running a trend-following liquid token fund and a market-neutral DeFi yield fund.

Media contacts

Leigh Drogen, CIO and Founding GP, Starkiller Capital — [email protected]

Jason Rosenfeld, Co-founder and CEO, CrowdCent — [email protected]

Disclaimers

This announcement is for information only and is not an offer or solicitation to buy any security, fund interest, or vault interest, and is not investment advice. Any offering will be made only under the fund's offering documents, to eligible investors in jurisdictions where it is permitted. US persons and residents of restricted jurisdictions are not contemplated as investors. Certain figures above are hypothetical, simulated results from the CrowdCent Simulator; hypothetical results have inherent limitations, are prepared with the benefit of hindsight, do not reflect actual trading, and exclude slippage, market impact, and auto-deleveraging. Tournament results are competition scores and stakes, not fund track records. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Crypto perpetual futures are highly volatile and can lose all value.