The main point, though, is that data scientists don't have to sell the coin. They can stake coin against their models to earn additional USD. If their model performs better than chance, then they get their NMR back to stake the next round. If they are also competitive wrt confidence in their consistency then they also get some additional prize money that is only available to staking participants.

If they are overconfident and do not do better than chance then the coin they staked is destroyed.

All these cryto ico things are premined or centrally allocated in a way where they get a cut. If you have access to the printing press, then you make all the money, no matter what happens with the currency.

Sure, maybe they gave away some of the coins to datascientists, but I am sure they kept a healthly cut for themselves.