Person. JCal · J Cal · Jason
Silicon Valley angel investor and podcast host who was introduced to Bittensor by Mark Jeffrey in 2025, bought TAO personally and joined Stillcore Capital in 2026, and now tells his audience to buy one TAO as a bet to learn and a vote for decentralised AI.
you can go buy TAO like you buy Bitcoin and I don't give financial advice but if anybody's listening and you had a hundy that you were going to spend on some margaritas I'm going to say maybe drink some water ... the other $99 into just buying a little TAO for yourself. Why not?
6 Mar 2026 · in contextEvery quote is verbatim and dated. The reading above each era is written from the cited quotes only. Numbers link to the quote they cite.
In April 2025 he is a crypto-sceptic host being walked through Bittensor by Mark Jeffrey, conceding it may or may not be the next Bitcoin and liking that real entrepreneurs are involved 003 007. By March 2026 he is a holder and Stillcore partner with a 200x base case and a claim that the game of Bitcoin has ended 017 019 021. In April 2026, during the Covenant exit, he defends the network in plain English as global competition for capitalism while pressing for subnet governance 027 035 040.
better bitcoinSo Bittensor is the project. TAO is the coin. The network instead of doing gumball math is doing here is a competitor to AWS.
Recapping Mark Jeffrey's explanation for the TWiST audience on E2119; Jeffrey answered that it is an incentivisation network with about 100 subnets, not only an AWS competitor.
if you were running an AI job and you didn't need the stability corporate five nines of say AWS where you know at a company maybe you have to use AWS because nobody gets fired for using AWS, Azure, Oracle, whatever you could use this network that nobody owns and that is an open-source distributed project.
Restating what Chutes (subnet 64) offers after Mark Jeffrey said it runs about 85 percent cheaper than AWS.
This may or may not be the next Bitcoin.
Closing the Ready AI (subnet 33) discussion before asking Mark Jeffrey to plug his Hash Rate podcast.
I think it's like it is too clever in the same way the United States of America was too clever ... Why do all these like states have these state rights? ... it turns out like sometimes if you do things that are not efficient, then you gain some other qualities like resilience or competition.
Replying to Alex Wilhelm, who had said the per-subnet token economy was too clever by half.
this has always been my problem with crypto in general ... in the early days of crypto I met with a 100 projects and ... in 95 96 97 of them it was unqualified people building outlandish things with spelling errors in their white papers
After Mark Jeffrey said Barry Silbert was as all in on Bittensor as he had been on Bitcoin, Calacanis explained why he had stayed out of crypto.
this idea that a decentralized Uber or a decentralized Google or a decentralized Twitter is going to or decentralized Facebook is going to beat all those things. I was like that's not possible or not probable, but probably more not possible ... And listen, maybe I'll turn out to be wrong.
Same passage, stating his standing objection to decentralisation claims before saying what is different about Bittensor.
what I like about this project you've identified is it seems like there's real entrepreneurs there, which is great. And it seems like they're building actual products and services with utility from in some cases companies that exist in the real world that have a board of directors that have a domiciled location.
What he said was different about Bittensor compared with the crypto projects he had met earlier.
we talked about the project known as Bitcoin, the tip of the spear that got everybody engaged in this, but the math problems and all the CPU was going towards busy work, not actually serving a purpose other than, you know, establishing the Bitcoin network ... but it also was using a lot of energy.
To Lon Harris, after Mark Jeffrey described Bittensor as Bitcoin's mining side made programmable.
for full disclosure, uh you were starting a fund to take advantage of this called Stillcore and I joined you as a partner in that. I put some of my chips in. I think I'm going to be ready to put some more chips in, I'll be honest this year. I feel I'm feeling a little frisky.
Disclosing his Stillcore Capital position to Mark Jeffrey on air before asking for the most inspiring subnets.
you can go buy TAO like you buy Bitcoin and I don't give financial advice but if anybody's listening and you had a hundy that you were going to spend on some margaritas I'm going to say maybe drink some water ... the other $99 into just buying a little TAO for yourself. Why not?
After Mark Jeffrey described the Ridges (subnet 62) launch; the earliest reached instance of his buy-a-little-TAO line.
Open source is a gift to humanity. Fantastic. It's democratizing. But here, there's an incentive layer, which is the subnets tokens. So, I make this coder, this co-pilot better, I make some tokens and then I can put those tokens and I don't just get a high five ... instead of going to work for Cursor.
Contrasting contributing to OpenClaw with mining on Ridges, checking his understanding with Mark Jeffrey, who confirmed it.
So this is like being in the early days, Ala, of Bitcoin where I don't know Mount Gox came out, some wallets came out. There were lots of different small projects.
To Ala Shaabana, Bittensor co-founder, about Crucible Labs building a wallet for subnet tokens.
You have this premise at Stillcore, hey, we know that TAO has the potential to be the next Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever it is. It's not guaranteed. Nothing is. This is a bit of the wild west ... after you make that bet, you're making the second bet. And the second investment is which one of these will break out.
Setting up a question to Mark Jeffrey about how Stillcore evaluates a subnet like Ridges at a 30 million dollar market cap.
As you can see, like Bitcoin, there's so many picks and shovels and services and application layer here. There's all different places to invest.
Summing up after Mark Jeffrey explained Targon (subnet 4) as cheap inference with both equity and token exposure.
This one is less interesting to me because storage is such a commodity. Why would you consider this one if storage is a commodity?
Pushing back when Mark Jeffrey named Hippius, the decentralised storage subnet, as Stillcore's third investment.
A lot of people have been asking me my involvement in the ecosystem. A lot of people are like, “Oh my god, are you pumping?”
Opening a segment on TWiST E2266 in which Alex Wilhelm asked how much TAO he owns.
if you go to stillcorecapital.com ... my friend Mark Jeffrey started this. He asked me to be a partner in it. So, I seeded this fund with couple of hundred thousand dollars. They've got a couple of million dollars under management ... I have probably a half million dollars in TAO I've bought. Personally.
Answering Alex Wilhelm; this is the primary behind press reports that misprinted the figure as 500 million dollars.
I believe that that could become as big as Solana, let's say, or Ethereum. Probably not as big as Bitcoin cuz Bitcoin is, you know, a phenomenon that might only be a once
Walking Elizabeth Yin through his back-of-the-envelope view of TAO's two to three billion dollar market cap.
I've always said there would be a better Bitcoin. Um and that there would be a better opportunity. I think the game of Bitcoin has ended and it ended when Michael Saylor got to three, four, five points of ownership of Bitcoin, Alex, and other corporate interests bought a certain amount. It's not punk rock anymore.
Same segment, explaining why he is not making the bet on Bitcoin.
Crypto is now legal and is becoming organized. I had the SEC chair and the CFTC chair on All-In ... I believe crypto now has been blessed, the rules of the road are there ... Therefore, I think making a bet on a crypto project that is distributed and that solves real world problems like startups
Giving the regulatory reason for placing a crypto bet now.
There's something there that could compound to ... a $500 billion market cap for ... TAO, which would be roughly ... let's put it at 2.5 billion. That's a 200x from here. That's my base case is I think we could be sitting here and TAO in 5 to 10 years could go 200x.
The 200x line that was reported across crypto press in the following days.
I see entrepreneurs like Gavin and Pranav trying these things across 128 ... And if it works, it's going to be cloud computing, storage, and ... lead gen. It's going to be everything. Everybody's going to try to play one of these games to lower the cost of basic services. That's my bet.
Explaining how he arrives at the number, with two subnet founders (Gavin and Pranav) as guests.
The chances of this happening are low. Like, 500 billion is a big number, but we've seen it happen before. Therefore, I am fine losing all my money, hundreds of thousands dollars, close to a million dollars, whatever I wind up putting in all this. I'm okay losing it. I haven't put any of my fund money in it
Qualifying the 200x prediction and separating his personal bet from his venture funds.
Anyway, I'm in the learning phase here. I like, Alex, place a bet and learn. Not deliberate forever and then place a bet. Given my experience in life doing this for a long time, I just go all in and place a bet.
Closing the disclosure segment; the earliest reached instance of the bet-and-learn phrase he later posted as bet to learn.
the reason is because I did place a bet on TAO uh like a couple of weeks ago I went public with, “Hey, yeah, I've got a small bet here because I think these subnets are fascinating in distributed computing.” ... I might be five or six hundred thousand dollars. A tiny bet.
On All-In, after Chamath Palihapitiya said his TAO question to Jensen Huang had caused a storm online and that he was not long TAO; co-hosts teased him about TAO maxing.
it's a distributed network, and, just like Bitcoin, you can have uh, people compete to provide that service at the lowest possible price, which is super deflationary. And my thesis, and got an investment uh, in this space is I've got couple different investments in the subnets and I bought TAO directly.
Opening the episode the morning after Covenant AI announced it was leaving Bittensor.
making sure there aren't rug pulls like ... we saw all the time with ICOs or meme coins. This is a major vector of attack ... So, what TAO is trying to do is remove that possibility ... you have to have some control over the subnets and there has to be governance.
Giving his first take when Alex Wilhelm read Covenant's statement accusing Bittensor of not being decentralised.
It would be like investing in a startup and then the startup just says, you know, “I don't like the way capitalism works, I'm out,” and then they take the money ... yes, you should be able to leave your subnet and go do something independent if you want, of course. But, you don't get to leave with everybody's tokens
Disagreeing with Alex Wilhelm, who said he struggled to be angry at Sam Dare for moving Covenant elsewhere.
since the administrations changed and the folks who were running crypto policy have changed, I am now officially open for business in crypto ... I'm getting involved in TAO. I'm specifically looking though only for projects where there is a customer who is either making money, saving money, entertained, or otherwise delighted by a product or service.
After Gareth Howells of Vidaio (subnet 85) demonstrated video upscaling.
I'm not looking for meme coins. I am not looking for pump and dumps. I'm looking for, you know, actual products that create value and use the technology ... And really, when you look at the Bittensor universe, incentives matter, tapping into a global workforce, tapping into global compute, having it be distributed
Same passage, stating what he says Bittensor is for.
there's like fancy words used in crypto like permissionless. ... or you know, peer-to-peer, or distributed. All this stuff means is anybody can participate. The compute or storage or transit can come from anybody. And that means it moves faster, and it more violently removes cost.
Translating crypto vocabulary for the TWiST audience.
if everybody in the world could work at your local Starbucks, or anybody in the world could magically sell coffee beans to your local coffee shop, and they basically had a competition, you would have a barista for $1 a day, $2 a day, living like a king or queen in their native location.
His analogy for what a permissionless miner market does to the price of a service.
this actually empowers, I believe, labor. If you consider labor, you know, the the supply side on these things ... So, the people who lose are the people who are charging a higher price uh or and or giving a lower level of service. The winner is best price, best service.
Answering Alex Wilhelm's worry that winner-takes-most subnet rewards narrow the economic opportunity for miners.
the validator, which is the person who basically arbitrates, did you actually perform the task? Again, in crypto uses a lot of fancy terms or a lot of wonky terms. A validator is just the person who checks the work. Okay, you made a flat white. Is this a good flat white or is it garbage?
Extending the coffee shop analogy to validators.
This is capitalism at its finest. And if you ever dreamed of, you know, one human race working on projects beyond borders, beyond governments, beyond regulation, that's what makes this so um compelling to me. It kind of cuts across humanity and just makes a global competition for capitalism.
The peak of the same answer, on why the miner market appeals to him.
I'm not writing the code of Bittensor ... my job is to explain it in plain English and to explain my thesis. So, for people who are like you're pumping this, for people who are like you don't know what you're talking about, of course I don't know what I'm talking about. I am an investor. I am a commentator.
Responding to critics in his X replies after Alex Wilhelm called buying TAO a call option on decentralised global intelligence.
My way is studying, placing bets, losing bets, learning, placing more bets, and that's the job of an investor. Is you learn by betting. My job is to learn by betting and to have conversations, which is what I'm doing here.
Same passage, describing how he engages with the network.
Mark started telling me, Lon, about Bittensor and TAO cuz I was like, “Hey, what's going on?” Cuz I think crypto's turning a corner here. It's becoming legal. It's becoming regulated in a very intelligent way. And I'm curious, is there anybody doing anything where a consumer or an enterprise gets value other than store of value and money transfer?
Introducing Mark Jeffrey and crediting him with bringing Bittensor to his attention.
I found him a little squirrely ... I kind of pushed him on, “Hey, what are you doing next and how does this work?” And the answers, Mark, weren't as crisp or as tight as I might have expected from somebody running something significant
On Sam Dare of Covenant AI, whom he had interviewed on TWiST on 2026-03-27; auto captions do not mark speakers, so parts of this exchange may be Lon Harris.
how can we avoid this in the future? And who owns a subnet? And who should own a subnet? Should it be the miners themselves or should there be governance here? Should there be a 51% rule where the people contributing to it own it? What's the best practice here
Asking Mark Jeffrey how subnet ownership should be codified outside a Delaware corporation after the Covenant token sales.
I'm getting pulled in both directions. I've got my venture firm here, and then I'm a partner in Stillcore. Okay, I placed my bet here, but should I also be like, “Hmm, maybe Launch or my syndicate should talk to Ken about investing in his corporation.”
Asking whether to hold subnet tokens or equity in the company behind BitMind (subnet 34), whose co-founder Ken Miyachi was a guest.
I think the easiest thing to do is buy a little bit of TAO. You get the mutual fund effect, which would be like if you asked me, “Should I be an angel investor, or should I put money into a VC firm?”
Answering Lon Harris's question on whether a regular viewer should buy TAO or pick subnets.
I don't have the time to evaluate every subnet, so I'm a partner and investor in Stillcore Capital, which Mark is doing. All of these things are incredibly speculative. 90% of the bets I make go to zero.
Same answer, on why he delegates subnet selection to Stillcore.
is this a corporation, Will, and you have venture capital backing it, or is it just a straight anachronistic uh crypto weirdo project? How is this running?
To Will Squires of Macrocosmos after the Iota (subnet 9) training demo.
From July 2026 the ask shrinks to buy just one TAO and the frame turns civic: a bet to learn, a vote of confidence, a third way to protect sovereign intelligence 046 050 051. The Bitcoin comparison hardens into a rotation call, sell half your bitcoin for productive projects like TAO and SOL 047, and he says he is probably underwater but holding for a decade 055 056.
ticketShift From an investor's price thesis (200x, better Bitcoin) to a participation pitch aimed at retail (one TAO, a vote, sovereignty), while disclosure becomes the recurring theme after trackers copied his trades.
I talked a little bit about Bittensor on the program known as TAO, dollar sign TAO. It's a crypto project. Somebody who is creating a subnet that is putting GLM 5.2 and other models available at really cheap prices. So I all of a sudden experienced because they gave me an API key having my token cost go down 95%.
On All-In, describing how he runs his own agents; a Bittensor inference subnet cut his token cost.
bittensor:native = ai sovereignty Please buy just one $tao on @coinbase for two reasons: 1. “bet to to learn” while… 2. … you support “a third way” to protect sovereign intelligence This is financial and philosophical advice. Worst case you lose $200, best case you
Quote-posting @Raleigh_CA's thread Who owns your Intelligence; the X syndication endpoint truncates the post after best case you, and bittensor:native is X's cashtag markup for $TAO.
The $btc power bottom is in! 😂 Seriously, if you were my brother I would say “sell half your bitcoin and put it into productive projects like bittensor:native and solana:So11111111111111111111111111111111111111112, that are actually delivering new products — not just projects
Post on X, truncated by the syndication endpoint; Yahoo Finance and TheStreet complete it as not just projects and promises; the cashtag markup is X's.
I've been looking for a crypto project that would solve problems in the real world ... the second bet I made was on Bittensor. Why did I make it on Bittensor? I just saw these subnets actually solving problems in the real world. And I said, “This is what I've been waiting for.”
Opening the Const interview with Lon Harris; his first bet was Bitcoin.
If you're a neophyte to crypto or you think crypto is a scam, I really want you to pay attention to this one because there's two times in the history of crypto I said definitely not a scam ... It was Bitcoin. I made millions and it's TAO. I predict I'm going to make tens of millions.
Framing the Const interview for viewers who distrust crypto.
just buy one TAO is what I've been telling folks. Why? Because I think it is a ticket to watch ... a spectacular experiment occur ... It's a front row seat to like bet and learn and it's not financial advice
Closing the Const interview; the latest reached instance of the buy one TAO line.
it's also like in one way a vote ... a vote of confidence that maybe there could be a decentralized AI intelligence platform out there and that's good for humanity.
Same passage, the second reason he gives for buying one TAO.
non-builders like myself saying hey I want to invest in this because I think there's something here and I'm fascinated by it and I like to make a return ... maybe this thing can go 100 or a thousandx that's why I make the bet it's like a real long shot kind of bet in my mind
Asking Const whether speculators like him help or distract the project.
when you spend an hour talking to him, it reminds me of what I saw in the Bitcoin early ... True Believers and I had somebody on I think in 2011 ... and I saw it then I didn't make a big enough bet and now I see this and it just all the signaling is going off.
To Lon Harris after Const left the call.
So I was like, “All right, let me put like I don't know if I put like half a million or 750 into this, something like that.” Not a lot of money for me. ... It's not out of my funds. It's just personal because I think there's something here that's notable.
Same passage, restating the size of his personal position.
I think I might actually be down right now in my Bittensor bet which I made this year. And I like to be vocal and clear about this so that nobody thinks I have some nefarious reason. And that's why I told folks just buy one because I realized people were starting to take my tweets ...
Explaining why the ask shrank to one TAO once trackers began copying his trades.
I'm not day trading. I'm J trading. J trading is hold for a decade.
Closing the episode, on how he holds public bets such as TAO.
A brand strategy skeleton turned on the speaker: not what Bittensor's brand is, but what this voice's Bittensor is. Slots with no evidence are left out rather than filled.
What they say it is for, the world it builds, what it stands for.
Bittensor is an incentive network that taps a global workforce and global compute so that anyone can supply a service, which he says moves faster and removes cost more violently than incumbents.
I'm not looking for meme coins. I am not looking for pump and dumps. I'm looking for, you know, actual products that create value and use the technology ... And really, when you look at the Bittensor universe, incentives matter, tapping into a global workforce, tapping into global compute, having it be distributed
there's like fancy words used in crypto like permissionless. ... or you know, peer-to-peer, or distributed. All this stuff means is anybody can participate. The compute or storage or transit can come from anybody. And that means it moves faster, and it more violently removes cost.
One human race competing on projects beyond borders and regulation, every basic service (cloud, storage, lead gen) run as a subnet game, and a decentralised AI platform that he calls good for humanity and, on X, sovereign intelligence.
This is capitalism at its finest. And if you ever dreamed of, you know, one human race working on projects beyond borders, beyond governments, beyond regulation, that's what makes this so um compelling to me. It kind of cuts across humanity and just makes a global competition for capitalism.
I see entrepreneurs like Gavin and Pranav trying these things across 128 ... And if it works, it's going to be cloud computing, storage, and ... lead gen. It's going to be everything. Everybody's going to try to play one of these games to lower the cost of basic services. That's my bet.
it's also like in one way a vote ... a vote of confidence that maybe there could be a decentralized AI intelligence platform out there and that's good for humanity.
bittensor:native = ai sovereignty Please buy just one $tao on @coinbase for two reasons: 1. “bet to to learn” while… 2. … you support “a third way” to protect sovereign intelligence This is financial and philosophical advice. Worst case you lose $200, best case you
Real products with real customers, real entrepreneurs with boards and domiciles, no meme coins or pump and dumps, labour empowered by open competition, and no leaving with everybody's tokens.
what I like about this project you've identified is it seems like there's real entrepreneurs there, which is great. And it seems like they're building actual products and services with utility from in some cases companies that exist in the real world that have a board of directors that have a domiciled location.
making sure there aren't rug pulls like ... we saw all the time with ICOs or meme coins. This is a major vector of attack ... So, what TAO is trying to do is remove that possibility ... you have to have some control over the subnets and there has to be governance.
I'm not looking for meme coins. I am not looking for pump and dumps. I'm looking for, you know, actual products that create value and use the technology ... And really, when you look at the Bittensor universe, incentives matter, tapping into a global workforce, tapping into global compute, having it be distributed
this actually empowers, I believe, labor. If you consider labor, you know, the the supply side on these things ... So, the people who lose are the people who are charging a higher price uh or and or giving a lower level of service. The winner is best price, best service.
It would be like investing in a startup and then the startup just says, you know, “I don't like the way capitalism works, I'm out,” and then they take the money ... yes, you should be able to leave your subnet and go do something independent if you want, of course. But, you don't get to leave with everybody's tokens
since the administrations changed and the folks who were running crypto policy have changed, I am now officially open for business in crypto ... I'm getting involved in TAO. I'm specifically looking though only for projects where there is a customer who is either making money, saving money, entertained, or otherwise delighted by a product or service.
What is broken that Bittensor answers, in their telling.
Bitcoin's mining is busy work that burns energy, most earlier crypto projects were unqualified people with typo-ridden white papers, and he doubted decentralised versions of Uber or Google could beat the originals; he wanted a project where a consumer or enterprise gets value beyond store of value and transfer.
we talked about the project known as Bitcoin, the tip of the spear that got everybody engaged in this, but the math problems and all the CPU was going towards busy work, not actually serving a purpose other than, you know, establishing the Bitcoin network ... but it also was using a lot of energy.
this has always been my problem with crypto in general ... in the early days of crypto I met with a 100 projects and ... in 95 96 97 of them it was unqualified people building outlandish things with spelling errors in their white papers
this idea that a decentralized Uber or a decentralized Google or a decentralized Twitter is going to or decentralized Facebook is going to beat all those things. I was like that's not possible or not probable, but probably more not possible ... And listen, maybe I'll turn out to be wrong.
Mark started telling me, Lon, about Bittensor and TAO cuz I was like, “Hey, what's going on?” Cuz I think crypto's turning a corner here. It's becoming legal. It's becoming regulated in a very intelligent way. And I'm curious, is there anybody doing anything where a consumer or an enterprise gets value other than store of value and money transfer?
Rug pulls are the main attack vector on the network; subnet ownership needs governance and a codified rule, since a founder can leave with the tokens.
making sure there aren't rug pulls like ... we saw all the time with ICOs or meme coins. This is a major vector of attack ... So, what TAO is trying to do is remove that possibility ... you have to have some control over the subnets and there has to be governance.
how can we avoid this in the future? And who owns a subnet? And who should own a subnet? Should it be the miners themselves or should there be governance here? Should there be a 51% rule where the people contributing to it own it? What's the best practice here
The tailwinds they cite.
Crypto has become legal and regulated under the new administration and the SEC and CFTC chairs, which he says blesses a bet; it is early-days Bitcoin with picks and shovels still to be built.
Crypto is now legal and is becoming organized. I had the SEC chair and the CFTC chair on All-In ... I believe crypto now has been blessed, the rules of the road are there ... Therefore, I think making a bet on a crypto project that is distributed and that solves real world problems like startups
So this is like being in the early days, Ala, of Bitcoin where I don't know Mount Gox came out, some wallets came out. There were lots of different small projects.
As you can see, like Bitcoin, there's so many picks and shovels and services and application layer here. There's all different places to invest.
since the administrations changed and the folks who were running crypto policy have changed, I am now officially open for business in crypto ... I'm getting involved in TAO. I'm specifically looking though only for projects where there is a customer who is either making money, saving money, entertained, or otherwise delighted by a product or service.
Mark started telling me, Lon, about Bittensor and TAO cuz I was like, “Hey, what's going on?” Cuz I think crypto's turning a corner here. It's becoming legal. It's becoming regulated in a very intelligent way. And I'm curious, is there anybody doing anything where a consumer or an enterprise gets value other than store of value and money transfer?
You have this premise at Stillcore, hey, we know that TAO has the potential to be the next Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever it is. It's not guaranteed. Nothing is. This is a bit of the wild west ... after you make that bet, you're making the second bet. And the second investment is which one of these will break out.
Who they talk to and what they tell them.
Retail newcomers and crypto sceptics: buy a little TAO, or just one, as a mutual-fund style ticket; he addresses his own X followers directly and tells Bitcoin holders to rotate half into TAO and SOL.
you can go buy TAO like you buy Bitcoin and I don't give financial advice but if anybody's listening and you had a hundy that you were going to spend on some margaritas I'm going to say maybe drink some water ... the other $99 into just buying a little TAO for yourself. Why not?
I think the easiest thing to do is buy a little bit of TAO. You get the mutual fund effect, which would be like if you asked me, “Should I be an angel investor, or should I put money into a VC firm?”
bittensor:native = ai sovereignty Please buy just one $tao on @coinbase for two reasons: 1. “bet to to learn” while… 2. … you support “a third way” to protect sovereign intelligence This is financial and philosophical advice. Worst case you lose $200, best case you
If you're a neophyte to crypto or you think crypto is a scam, I really want you to pay attention to this one because there's two times in the history of crypto I said definitely not a scam ... It was Bitcoin. I made millions and it's TAO. I predict I'm going to make tens of millions.
The $btc power bottom is in! 😂 Seriously, if you were my brother I would say “sell half your bitcoin and put it into productive projects like bittensor:native and solana:So11111111111111111111111111111111111111112, that are actually delivering new products — not just projects
I don't have the time to evaluate every subnet, so I'm a partner and investor in Stillcore Capital, which Mark is doing. All of these things are incredibly speculative. 90% of the bets I make go to zero.
just buy one TAO is what I've been telling folks. Why? Because I think it is a ticket to watch ... a spectacular experiment occur ... It's a front row seat to like bet and learn and it's not financial advice
What they set it against.
Against Bitcoin as a finished, corporate-owned game that is no longer punk rock, against AWS-style clouds on price, and against Covenant's Sam Dare for leaving with holders' tokens.
I've always said there would be a better Bitcoin. Um and that there would be a better opportunity. I think the game of Bitcoin has ended and it ended when Michael Saylor got to three, four, five points of ownership of Bitcoin, Alex, and other corporate interests bought a certain amount. It's not punk rock anymore.
The $btc power bottom is in! 😂 Seriously, if you were my brother I would say “sell half your bitcoin and put it into productive projects like bittensor:native and solana:So11111111111111111111111111111111111111112, that are actually delivering new products — not just projects
if you were running an AI job and you didn't need the stability corporate five nines of say AWS where you know at a company maybe you have to use AWS because nobody gets fired for using AWS, Azure, Oracle, whatever you could use this network that nobody owns and that is an open-source distributed project.
It would be like investing in a startup and then the startup just says, you know, “I don't like the way capitalism works, I'm out,” and then they take the money ... yes, you should be able to leave your subnet and go do something independent if you want, of course. But, you don't get to leave with everybody's tokens
I found him a little squirrely ... I kind of pushed him on, “Hey, what are you doing next and how does this work?” And the answers, Mark, weren't as crisp or as tight as I might have expected from somebody running something significant
we talked about the project known as Bitcoin, the tip of the spear that got everybody engaged in this, but the math problems and all the CPU was going towards busy work, not actually serving a purpose other than, you know, establishing the Bitcoin network ... but it also was using a lot of energy.
Category frame, differentiator, reason to believe.
A Solana or Ethereum scale asset and a possible next or better Bitcoin, though probably not as big as Bitcoin; buying TAO is the index on the subnet economy.
I believe that that could become as big as Solana, let's say, or Ethereum. Probably not as big as Bitcoin cuz Bitcoin is, you know, a phenomenon that might only be a once
This may or may not be the next Bitcoin.
You have this premise at Stillcore, hey, we know that TAO has the potential to be the next Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever it is. It's not guaranteed. Nothing is. This is a bit of the wild west ... after you make that bet, you're making the second bet. And the second investment is which one of these will break out.
I think the easiest thing to do is buy a little bit of TAO. You get the mutual fund effect, which would be like if you asked me, “Should I be an angel investor, or should I put money into a VC firm?”
If you're a neophyte to crypto or you think crypto is a scam, I really want you to pay attention to this one because there's two times in the history of crypto I said definitely not a scam ... It was Bitcoin. I made millions and it's TAO. I predict I'm going to make tens of millions.
So Bittensor is the project. TAO is the coin. The network instead of doing gumball math is doing here is a competitor to AWS.
So this is like being in the early days, Ala, of Bitcoin where I don't know Mount Gox came out, some wallets came out. There were lots of different small projects.
Unlike plain open source, contributors earn tokens for improving a product, and unlike AWS the network is owned by nobody; the many-subnet structure trades efficiency for resilience and competition, as with US federalism.
Open source is a gift to humanity. Fantastic. It's democratizing. But here, there's an incentive layer, which is the subnets tokens. So, I make this coder, this co-pilot better, I make some tokens and then I can put those tokens and I don't just get a high five ... instead of going to work for Cursor.
if you were running an AI job and you didn't need the stability corporate five nines of say AWS where you know at a company maybe you have to use AWS because nobody gets fired for using AWS, Azure, Oracle, whatever you could use this network that nobody owns and that is an open-source distributed project.
I think it's like it is too clever in the same way the United States of America was too clever ... Why do all these like states have these state rights? ... it turns out like sometimes if you do things that are not efficient, then you gain some other qualities like resilience or competition.
Subnets are solving real problems, competition among miners is deflationary, and the founders remind him of the Bitcoin true believers he under-bet in 2011; the upside he cites is 200x in five to ten years.
I've been looking for a crypto project that would solve problems in the real world ... the second bet I made was on Bittensor. Why did I make it on Bittensor? I just saw these subnets actually solving problems in the real world. And I said, “This is what I've been waiting for.”
it's a distributed network, and, just like Bitcoin, you can have uh, people compete to provide that service at the lowest possible price, which is super deflationary. And my thesis, and got an investment uh, in this space is I've got couple different investments in the subnets and I bought TAO directly.
when you spend an hour talking to him, it reminds me of what I saw in the Bitcoin early ... True Believers and I had somebody on I think in 2011 ... and I saw it then I didn't make a big enough bet and now I see this and it just all the signaling is going off.
There's something there that could compound to ... a $500 billion market cap for ... TAO, which would be roughly ... let's put it at 2.5 billion. That's a 200x from here. That's my base case is I think we could be sitting here and TAO in 5 to 10 years could go 200x.
what I like about this project you've identified is it seems like there's real entrepreneurs there, which is great. And it seems like they're building actual products and services with utility from in some cases companies that exist in the real world that have a board of directors that have a domiciled location.
if everybody in the world could work at your local Starbucks, or anybody in the world could magically sell coffee beans to your local coffee shop, and they basically had a competition, you would have a barista for $1 a day, $2 a day, living like a king or queen in their native location.
I think it's like it is too clever in the same way the United States of America was too clever ... Why do all these like states have these state rights? ... it turns out like sometimes if you do things that are not efficient, then you gain some other qualities like resilience or competition.
non-builders like myself saying hey I want to invest in this because I think there's something here and I'm fascinated by it and I like to make a return ... maybe this thing can go 100 or a thousandx that's why I make the bet it's like a real long shot kind of bet in my mind
The benefit they claim, the feeling they sell, what joining says about you.
Cheaper services through open competition: 85 percent cheaper compute, a 95 percent cut in his own token costs, and a global miner market that drives prices toward the lowest bidder.
if you were running an AI job and you didn't need the stability corporate five nines of say AWS where you know at a company maybe you have to use AWS because nobody gets fired for using AWS, Azure, Oracle, whatever you could use this network that nobody owns and that is an open-source distributed project.
I talked a little bit about Bittensor on the program known as TAO, dollar sign TAO. It's a crypto project. Somebody who is creating a subnet that is putting GLM 5.2 and other models available at really cheap prices. So I all of a sudden experienced because they gave me an API key having my token cost go down 95%.
if everybody in the world could work at your local Starbucks, or anybody in the world could magically sell coffee beans to your local coffee shop, and they basically had a competition, you would have a barista for $1 a day, $2 a day, living like a king or queen in their native location.
there's like fancy words used in crypto like permissionless. ... or you know, peer-to-peer, or distributed. All this stuff means is anybody can participate. The compute or storage or transit can come from anybody. And that means it moves faster, and it more violently removes cost.
it's a distributed network, and, just like Bitcoin, you can have uh, people compete to provide that service at the lowest possible price, which is super deflationary. And my thesis, and got an investment uh, in this space is I've got couple different investments in the subnets and I bought TAO directly.
Open source is a gift to humanity. Fantastic. It's democratizing. But here, there's an incentive layer, which is the subnets tokens. So, I make this coder, this co-pilot better, I make some tokens and then I can put those tokens and I don't just get a high five ... instead of going to work for Cursor.
I see entrepreneurs like Gavin and Pranav trying these things across 128 ... And if it works, it's going to be cloud computing, storage, and ... lead gen. It's going to be everything. Everybody's going to try to play one of these games to lower the cost of basic services. That's my bet.
this actually empowers, I believe, labor. If you consider labor, you know, the the supply side on these things ... So, the people who lose are the people who are charging a higher price uh or and or giving a lower level of service. The winner is best price, best service.
The thrill of a front row seat at a spectacular experiment and of capitalism at its finest crossing borders.
This is capitalism at its finest. And if you ever dreamed of, you know, one human race working on projects beyond borders, beyond governments, beyond regulation, that's what makes this so um compelling to me. It kind of cuts across humanity and just makes a global competition for capitalism.
it's also like in one way a vote ... a vote of confidence that maybe there could be a decentralized AI intelligence platform out there and that's good for humanity.
just buy one TAO is what I've been telling folks. Why? Because I think it is a ticket to watch ... a spectacular experiment occur ... It's a front row seat to like bet and learn and it's not financial advice
Owning TAO marks you as someone who bets to learn rather than deliberates forever, and who is voting for a decentralised AI platform.
Anyway, I'm in the learning phase here. I like, Alex, place a bet and learn. Not deliberate forever and then place a bet. Given my experience in life doing this for a long time, I just go all in and place a bet.
My way is studying, placing bets, losing bets, learning, placing more bets, and that's the job of an investor. Is you learn by betting. My job is to learn by betting and to have conversations, which is what I'm doing here.
just buy one TAO is what I've been telling folks. Why? Because I think it is a ticket to watch ... a spectacular experiment occur ... It's a front row seat to like bet and learn and it's not financial advice
non-builders like myself saying hey I want to invest in this because I think there's something here and I'm fascinated by it and I like to make a return ... maybe this thing can go 100 or a thousandx that's why I make the bet it's like a real long shot kind of bet in my mind
The line they repeat and the proof they point to.
Two repeated lines: TAO could go 200x in five to ten years, and please buy just one TAO, a bet to learn and a vote for a third way.
There's something there that could compound to ... a $500 billion market cap for ... TAO, which would be roughly ... let's put it at 2.5 billion. That's a 200x from here. That's my base case is I think we could be sitting here and TAO in 5 to 10 years could go 200x.
bittensor:native = ai sovereignty Please buy just one $tao on @coinbase for two reasons: 1. “bet to to learn” while… 2. … you support “a third way” to protect sovereign intelligence This is financial and philosophical advice. Worst case you lose $200, best case you
just buy one TAO is what I've been telling folks. Why? Because I think it is a ticket to watch ... a spectacular experiment occur ... It's a front row seat to like bet and learn and it's not financial advice
you can go buy TAO like you buy Bitcoin and I don't give financial advice but if anybody's listening and you had a hundy that you were going to spend on some margaritas I'm going to say maybe drink some water ... the other $99 into just buying a little TAO for yourself. Why not?
I think I might actually be down right now in my Bittensor bet which I made this year. And I like to be vocal and clear about this so that nobody thinks I have some nefarious reason. And that's why I told folks just buy one because I realized people were starting to take my tweets ...
If you're a neophyte to crypto or you think crypto is a scam, I really want you to pay attention to this one because there's two times in the history of crypto I said definitely not a scam ... It was Bitcoin. I made millions and it's TAO. I predict I'm going to make tens of millions.
His own money: roughly half a million dollars of TAO bought personally on Coinbase, a couple of hundred thousand seeded into Stillcore, and a subnet that cut his inference bill by 95 percent.
if you go to stillcorecapital.com ... my friend Mark Jeffrey started this. He asked me to be a partner in it. So, I seeded this fund with couple of hundred thousand dollars. They've got a couple of million dollars under management ... I have probably a half million dollars in TAO I've bought. Personally.
the reason is because I did place a bet on TAO uh like a couple of weeks ago I went public with, “Hey, yeah, I've got a small bet here because I think these subnets are fascinating in distributed computing.” ... I might be five or six hundred thousand dollars. A tiny bet.
I talked a little bit about Bittensor on the program known as TAO, dollar sign TAO. It's a crypto project. Somebody who is creating a subnet that is putting GLM 5.2 and other models available at really cheap prices. So I all of a sudden experienced because they gave me an API key having my token cost go down 95%.
So I was like, “All right, let me put like I don't know if I put like half a million or 750 into this, something like that.” Not a lot of money for me. ... It's not out of my funds. It's just personal because I think there's something here that's notable.
when you spend an hour talking to him, it reminds me of what I saw in the Bitcoin early ... True Believers and I had somebody on I think in 2011 ... and I saw it then I didn't make a big enough bet and now I see this and it just all the signaling is going off.
Register more than claim.
Plain-English, self-deprecating and combative: he answers are you pumping with of course I don't know what I'm talking about, calls a bootstrapped subnet a crypto weirdo project, and says he is J trading, not day trading.
A lot of people have been asking me my involvement in the ecosystem. A lot of people are like, “Oh my god, are you pumping?”
I'm not writing the code of Bittensor ... my job is to explain it in plain English and to explain my thesis. So, for people who are like you're pumping this, for people who are like you don't know what you're talking about, of course I don't know what I'm talking about. I am an investor. I am a commentator.
is this a corporation, Will, and you have venture capital backing it, or is it just a straight anachronistic uh crypto weirdo project? How is this running?
I'm not day trading. I'm J trading. J trading is hold for a decade.
This one is less interesting to me because storage is such a commodity. Why would you consider this one if storage is a commodity?
This may or may not be the next Bitcoin.
this has always been my problem with crypto in general ... in the early days of crypto I met with a 100 projects and ... in 95 96 97 of them it was unqualified people building outlandish things with spelling errors in their white papers
this idea that a decentralized Uber or a decentralized Google or a decentralized Twitter is going to or decentralized Facebook is going to beat all those things. I was like that's not possible or not probable, but probably more not possible ... And listen, maybe I'll turn out to be wrong.
you can go buy TAO like you buy Bitcoin and I don't give financial advice but if anybody's listening and you had a hundy that you were going to spend on some margaritas I'm going to say maybe drink some water ... the other $99 into just buying a little TAO for yourself. Why not?
The chances of this happening are low. Like, 500 billion is a big number, but we've seen it happen before. Therefore, I am fine losing all my money, hundreds of thousands dollars, close to a million dollars, whatever I wind up putting in all this. I'm okay losing it. I haven't put any of my fund money in it
I found him a little squirrely ... I kind of pushed him on, “Hey, what are you doing next and how does this work?” And the answers, Mark, weren't as crisp or as tight as I might have expected from somebody running something significant
I don't have the time to evaluate every subnet, so I'm a partner and investor in Stillcore Capital, which Mark is doing. All of these things are incredibly speculative. 90% of the bets I make go to zero.
The $btc power bottom is in! 😂 Seriously, if you were my brother I would say “sell half your bitcoin and put it into productive projects like bittensor:native and solana:So11111111111111111111111111111111111111112, that are actually delivering new products — not just projects
If you're a neophyte to crypto or you think crypto is a scam, I really want you to pay attention to this one because there's two times in the history of crypto I said definitely not a scam ... It was Bitcoin. I made millions and it's TAO. I predict I'm going to make tens of millions.
I think I might actually be down right now in my Bittensor bet which I made this year. And I like to be vocal and clear about this so that nobody thinks I have some nefarious reason. And that's why I told folks just buy one because I realized people were starting to take my tweets ...
How they describe their own relation to it.
Self-described investor, commentator and non-builder: personal TAO holder since early 2026, consulting partner in Stillcore Capital, transparent about being underwater, and explicit that none of his venture fund money is in it.
for full disclosure, uh you were starting a fund to take advantage of this called Stillcore and I joined you as a partner in that. I put some of my chips in. I think I'm going to be ready to put some more chips in, I'll be honest this year. I feel I'm feeling a little frisky.
if you go to stillcorecapital.com ... my friend Mark Jeffrey started this. He asked me to be a partner in it. So, I seeded this fund with couple of hundred thousand dollars. They've got a couple of million dollars under management ... I have probably a half million dollars in TAO I've bought. Personally.
The chances of this happening are low. Like, 500 billion is a big number, but we've seen it happen before. Therefore, I am fine losing all my money, hundreds of thousands dollars, close to a million dollars, whatever I wind up putting in all this. I'm okay losing it. I haven't put any of my fund money in it
the reason is because I did place a bet on TAO uh like a couple of weeks ago I went public with, “Hey, yeah, I've got a small bet here because I think these subnets are fascinating in distributed computing.” ... I might be five or six hundred thousand dollars. A tiny bet.
I'm not writing the code of Bittensor ... my job is to explain it in plain English and to explain my thesis. So, for people who are like you're pumping this, for people who are like you don't know what you're talking about, of course I don't know what I'm talking about. I am an investor. I am a commentator.
I'm getting pulled in both directions. I've got my venture firm here, and then I'm a partner in Stillcore. Okay, I placed my bet here, but should I also be like, “Hmm, maybe Launch or my syndicate should talk to Ken about investing in his corporation.”
I don't have the time to evaluate every subnet, so I'm a partner and investor in Stillcore Capital, which Mark is doing. All of these things are incredibly speculative. 90% of the bets I make go to zero.
I think I might actually be down right now in my Bittensor bet which I made this year. And I like to be vocal and clear about this so that nobody thinks I have some nefarious reason. And that's why I told folks just buy one because I realized people were starting to take my tweets ...
Mark started telling me, Lon, about Bittensor and TAO cuz I was like, “Hey, what's going on?” Cuz I think crypto's turning a corner here. It's becoming legal. It's becoming regulated in a very intelligent way. And I'm curious, is there anybody doing anything where a consumer or an enterprise gets value other than store of value and money transfer?
You have this premise at Stillcore, hey, we know that TAO has the potential to be the next Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever it is. It's not guaranteed. Nothing is. This is a bit of the wild west ... after you make that bet, you're making the second bet. And the second investment is which one of these will break out.
A lot of people have been asking me my involvement in the ecosystem. A lot of people are like, “Oh my god, are you pumping?”
Anyway, I'm in the learning phase here. I like, Alex, place a bet and learn. Not deliberate forever and then place a bet. Given my experience in life doing this for a long time, I just go all in and place a bet.
it's a distributed network, and, just like Bitcoin, you can have uh, people compete to provide that service at the lowest possible price, which is super deflationary. And my thesis, and got an investment uh, in this space is I've got couple different investments in the subnets and I bought TAO directly.
since the administrations changed and the folks who were running crypto policy have changed, I am now officially open for business in crypto ... I'm getting involved in TAO. I'm specifically looking though only for projects where there is a customer who is either making money, saving money, entertained, or otherwise delighted by a product or service.
I've been looking for a crypto project that would solve problems in the real world ... the second bet I made was on Bittensor. Why did I make it on Bittensor? I just saw these subnets actually solving problems in the real world. And I said, “This is what I've been waiting for.”
non-builders like myself saying hey I want to invest in this because I think there's something here and I'm fascinated by it and I like to make a return ... maybe this thing can go 100 or a thousandx that's why I make the bet it's like a real long shot kind of bet in my mind
when you spend an hour talking to him, it reminds me of what I saw in the Bitcoin early ... True Believers and I had somebody on I think in 2011 ... and I saw it then I didn't make a big enough bet and now I see this and it just all the signaling is going off.
So I was like, “All right, let me put like I don't know if I put like half a million or 750 into this, something like that.” Not a lot of money for me. ... It's not out of my funds. It's just personal because I think there's something here that's notable.
What they call things, and refuse to call them.
He translates crypto vocabulary (permissionless means anybody can participate, a validator checks the work) and coins his own: bet and learn or bet to learn, better Bitcoin, J trading, gumball math for Bitcoin hashing.
there's like fancy words used in crypto like permissionless. ... or you know, peer-to-peer, or distributed. All this stuff means is anybody can participate. The compute or storage or transit can come from anybody. And that means it moves faster, and it more violently removes cost.
the validator, which is the person who basically arbitrates, did you actually perform the task? Again, in crypto uses a lot of fancy terms or a lot of wonky terms. A validator is just the person who checks the work. Okay, you made a flat white. Is this a good flat white or is it garbage?
Anyway, I'm in the learning phase here. I like, Alex, place a bet and learn. Not deliberate forever and then place a bet. Given my experience in life doing this for a long time, I just go all in and place a bet.
bittensor:native = ai sovereignty Please buy just one $tao on @coinbase for two reasons: 1. “bet to to learn” while… 2. … you support “a third way” to protect sovereign intelligence This is financial and philosophical advice. Worst case you lose $200, best case you
I've always said there would be a better Bitcoin. Um and that there would be a better opportunity. I think the game of Bitcoin has ended and it ended when Michael Saylor got to three, four, five points of ownership of Bitcoin, Alex, and other corporate interests bought a certain amount. It's not punk rock anymore.
I'm not day trading. I'm J trading. J trading is hold for a decade.
So Bittensor is the project. TAO is the coin. The network instead of doing gumball math is doing here is a competitor to AWS.
My way is studying, placing bets, losing bets, learning, placing more bets, and that's the job of an investor. Is you learn by betting. My job is to learn by betting and to have conversations, which is what I'm doing here.
Who they agree with, borrow from, or argue against, with the quote that shows it.
Public appearances on the record, whether or not a quote was taken.
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