Bittensor shares its token structure with Bitcoin: a fixed supply of 21 million tokens on a halving cycle that cuts emissions every four years. TAO was fair launched, and all current TAO holders either earned TAO through valuable contributions to the network or purchased tokens on the secondary market.

Subnets are composed of three stakeholders:

1. Subnet Owners: Subnet owners are responsible for creating and maintaining the subnets, as well as defining the incentive mechanisms for miners and validators.


2. Miners : Miners compete to provide solutions to complex problems within each subnet. They strive to provide outputs that will score well against

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Consider the contrast with centrally planned economies. USSR’s economic model, for instance, relied on predetermined outputs and strategic decisions made by a select committee of party officials. It's a system that wins praise for its ability to mobilize massive resources toward national priorities but is widely faulted for its inflexibility.... See more

Conversely, Bittensor is a digital economy that is decentrally planned. Every TAO holder acts as a market participant by choosing which subnets to stake their TAO in. These staking decisions serve as "votes" pushing new TAO emissions to the most valuable projects. By harnessing market forces rather than top-down directives, Bittensor creates a... See more

Functionally, Bittensor is a decentralized network that uses its token rewards and a novel consensus mechanism to incentivize productive work. It is an incentive engine. The network's goal is to compete with centralized, state-of-the-art AI models by harnessing the power of decentralized, open-source technology.

Bittensor works via “proof-of-intelligence” structure. Whereas Bitcoin rewards its miners for raw computational power and solving an arbitrary puzzle, Bittensor directs its token rewards to productive work, as determined by TAO stakers. TAO holders can earn a yield on their TAO by staking to the root subnet (~20% APY) or can stake farther out on... See more

Each subnet has its own subnet-specific “alpha” token with the same fixed 21m supply and tokenomics as TAO. The only way to access alpha tokens is through Uniswap v1 style AMM pools with TAO. Bittensor participants delegate TAO to the AMM and receive the “alpha” token which offers both a higher APY and potential price appreciation of the alpha... See more

As the gap between open and closed AI systems continues to narrow, a token-based global coordination system will prove essential in harnessing the collective intelligence of builders to push AI forward without the massive capital requirements that gave proprietary models their edge.

The ecosystem is exploding, and there are murmurs of a “Subnet Summer” to rival DeFi Summer in 2020. Today, there are over 100 subnets, and new subnets are registered every 2-3 days. Most subnets are equivalent to Series A startups, in terms of product maturity. There is much optimism, but success requires further execution. TAO’s long-term success... See more