Person. Hash Rate · Hash Rate Podcast
Serial entrepreneur and early Bitcoin author who turned his Hash Rate podcast into the most followed weekly show on Bittensor subnets, then co-founded Stillcore Capital to invest in TAO and subnet tokens, explaining the network to newcomers through Bitcoin analogies and a contest-capitalism frame.
Bittensor TAO is probably the most interesting thing in BOTH crypto and AI afoot right now. The coin nearly doubled in value last week: Bitcoin economics + open AI subnetworks = 'actual' OpenAI -- the 'Linux' of the space. Now ReadyAI -- a subnet -- is attacking Scale.AI and making dents already.
Sep 2024 · 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.
He arrives as a podcaster and evangelist, framing TAO as a Bitcoin-like asset that could reach a trillion and as the Linux or actual OpenAI of the space 001 004, relaying the third great coin idea from a guest 006 and previewing Dynamic Tao as a marketplace for subnet rewards before it shipped 008. The register is show notes and headlines rather than argument.
bitcoin-like assetHash Rate - Ep. 46: Bittensor AI Venture Capital ... $25M committed to #Bittensor ecosystem!!! ... AI startups make more revenue on Bittensor (!) - $TAO to 1 Trillion+? A #Bitcoin-like asset? ... Bittensor is generating more revenue than OpenAI? - Are blockchains socialism? Or capitalism? Or BOTH?
His own show notes on X for a Hash Rate episode with Joseph Jacks of OSS Capital, published as a native X video.
00:00 Introduction and @Chamath's Mention of #Bittensor on @theallinpod ... 27:12 The $TAO hack - How? Major or minor? 33:29 The Foundation's Response and Reimbursement ... 41:52 Funding of a Bittensor Competitor 46:26 Subnets in Bittensor
His chapter list for Hash Rate Ep. 64 with Joseph Jacks, recorded after the July 2024 wallet exploit and the All-In Podcast mention of Bittensor.
00:00 Introduction to Subnet 19 in BitTensor ... 32:02 Dynamic Tao (DTAO) and Subnet Value 33:04 Incentive Mechanism and Education in BitTensor 39:38 The Rise of Open-Source AI Models ... 51:24 The Unique Community and Heart of BitTensor
His chapter list for Hash Rate Ep. 66 with the Subnet 19 operator, months before the dTAO upgrade shipped.
Bittensor TAO is probably the most interesting thing in BOTH crypto and AI afoot right now. The coin nearly doubled in value last week: Bitcoin economics + open AI subnetworks = 'actual' OpenAI -- the 'Linux' of the space. Now ReadyAI -- a subnet -- is attacking Scale.AI and making dents already.
A LinkedIn post to a general professional audience, announcing his coming interview with the ReadyAI CEO; the post date is decoded from the LinkedIn activity id.
Hash Rate - Ep. 74: @ReadyAI_ Bittensor SubNet 33 ... 'A Decentralized ScaleAI' on $TAO ... 20:46 Why Choose BitTensor for AI Solutions? 24:05 Dynamic Tao and Its Implications ... 33:13 Dynamic Tao Explained 36:04 Competition in the Decentralized AI Space
His show notes on X for the ReadyAI episode, framing a subnet as a decentralised rival to a centralised AI company.
Great analysis of $TAO in this morning's @arca newsletter …I'm starting to think (like @DavFields said on the last Hash Rate) — that: $TAO may be the 'Third Great Coin' alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. The intersecting flywheels of PoW PLUS required staking for…
An X post reacting to an Arca newsletter as TAO neared its all-time high; reached only through a Binance Square article that embeds the post, so the wording is the embed's truncated text.
$TAO is up 130% this month. Why? And what's next? ... 02:56 Understanding Proof of Work and BitTensor's Unique Approach 06:09 The Evolution of BitTensor: From Single Network to Subnets ... 14:59 Monetization and the Duality of Capitalism in BitTensor 18:07 Comparing BitTensor to Bitcoin Mining ... 42:20 The Future of TAO and Its Market Potential
His show notes for Hash Rate Ep. 75 with Joseph Jacks during the October 2024 rally.
17:52 Bittensor's Structure and Incentive Mechanisms ... 32:27 Monetizing AI Commodities: The Paywall Dilemma ... 38:07 The Dream Scenario: Partnerships with Big Tech 41:06 Competing with Centralized AI Giants ... 46:24 Dynamic Tao: A Marketplace for Subnet Rewards 56:26 The Future of dTao and Market Forces
His show notes on X for the BitMind (Subnet 34) episode, four months before dTAO went live.
As a Stillcore partner he writes the long-form State of TAO, replacing headline analogies with a worked model: freelancer contests, programmable mining, subnets as AI startups tracked by TAO like an S&P ETF, and the most ferocious form of capitalism 012 016 018. He criticises the wallets and the lack of a breakout subnet 021 026, and during the Covenant exit concedes governance defects while defending the network and Const 032. Accumulate TAO like 2013 Bitcoin becomes the investor line 033.
ferocious capitalismShift From evangelist headlines to an investor's model with named risks; the Bitcoin comparison moves from price analogy to mechanism analogy.
Bittensor $TAO has its first $100M subnet, just 9 weeks after dTAO launch. Congrats Chutes (SN64)! Chutes is 'serverless AI' providing 'instant on' AI model hosting (DeepSeek, Mistral, etc.) for 85% less cost than AWS.
An X post marking the first subnet token to reach a $100M market cap after the February 2025 dTAO launch.
TaoDaily.io is the new TechCrunch. Everything Bittensor summarized on the front page. Every boom period has one of these - Daily $TAO is this cycle's.
An X post recommending a Bittensor news aggregator, casting the subnet economy as a boom cycle comparable to the web startup era.
Like early Bitcoin, Bittensor is hard to explain to newcomers. But the explanations and metaphors have improved over time. So it's perhaps best to take it from the top
Opening of the State of TAO report, written for Stillcore Capital in January 2026 and posted by him as an X Article on 19 February 2026.
Instead of forming a 'company', imagine you make a list of 'tasks'. Freelancers -- some with PhD's -- from all over the world compete to finish each task for you THE BEST. It's a contest. And only the best freelancers get paid ... But not by you. A Bitcoin-like blockchain pays them. That's Bittensor.
His plain-language definition of Bittensor in the State of TAO report, aimed at readers who do not know the network.
The result: Bitcoin created $2.5 trillion in value and Earth's largest supercomputer in aggregate, 500x larger than the nearest competitor. Bittensor says, Hmm. This 'task contest' mining idea worked exceedingly well once. Maybe it can be replicated across multiple AI (and other) domains. So Bittensor takes Bitcoin's mining idea and expands it. Bittensor makes mining programmable.
State of TAO report, explaining the network as a generalisation of Bitcoin mining.
In Bitcoin, the contest to 'find the hash of the previous block first' basically boils down to guessing the number of gumballs in a jar. ... the actual work of 'guessing gumballs' is itself very wasteful. By contrast ... the 'work' done in Bittensor mining contests is actually very useful. Bittensor calls this Proof of Useful Work.
State of TAO report, contrasting Bitcoin hashing with subnet tasks.
You can think of Subnets as 128 AI startups. ... To get a Subnet token, you must stake $TAO. This means that subnet tokens ARE rehypothecated $TAO under the hood. ... Subnet tokens and $TAO are simply two versions of the same thing.
State of TAO report, explaining subnet tokens to investors and contrasting them with ERC20 tokens on Ethereum.
Thus $TAO tracks the combined value of all the Subnets akin to how an S&P 500 ETF tracks the combined value of the world's top 500 companies. In a certain sense, all Subnets are part of a 'TAO keiretsu'. They are at once separate and distinct, but united by a super-entity, a base token, that aligns them all.
State of TAO report, on why subnet growth accrues to TAO.
Everything in Bittensor is contests within contests to win new $TAO. ... It's contests within contests. It's very Darwinian. It's very 'Hunger Games'. And it's merciless: the weakest subnets and the weakest miners are regularly culled by the chain. ... Every day is a new gladiatorial round.
State of TAO report, describing daily emission competition between subnets and between miners.
Like Bitcoin, miners can join or leave anytime. It's open to anyone, anywhere on earth. For this reason, some call Bittensor an 'Open Economy'. Others call it 'Incentivism'. We call it the most ferocious form of capitalism yet invented. Everyone competes, always. Only the most excellent get anything. And everyone is re-evaluated continuously: you cannot rest.
State of TAO report, naming the category and setting his own label against the community's terms.
We've seen the same fractal repeat many times in compu-history: open (aka 'The Bazaar') wins over closed, large and centralized ('the Cathedral') almost every time. ... The lesson is clear: You can't fight the whole world. Open-source movements typically attract the best minds from all over the world to contribute.
State of TAO report, arguing why a subnet could reach a $1B market cap, with TCP/IP, Linux, Android and Bitcoin as precedents.
Bittensor Subnets are 'open source startups'. Anyone can join one of these startups by becoming a Miner. And anyone can invest in them by buying Subnet tokens. Because the whole world competes, you get this insanely efficient product creation engine.
State of TAO report, on why subnet products ship faster and cheaper than company products.
Over the last four years, Bittensor wallets have been like early Bitcoin or Ethereum wallets: ganky, not consumer-ready, and difficult for consumers (even crypto-savvy consumers) to use or understand. ... It's been the same ~20,000 participants trading against each other for the last year. ... No new money was entering. That just changed.
State of TAO report, criticising the network's tooling before praising the December 2025 Crucible and Tao.com wallets.
At Stillcore, we suspect we will see one or more breakout subnets in 2026. We think at least one Subnet token will reach a market cap of $1B. ... If this occurs, the demand for $TAO will spike rapidly. Why? Because you need $TAO to get Subnet tokens. $TAO is the coin of the realm.
State of TAO report section titled Subnets In 2026: The 'ICO Phase'?, comparing subnets to the 2016 to 2017 Ethereum ICO wave.
Bittensor has the exact same economics as Bitcoin, by design. This includes a halving at roughly 4-year intervals. ... Nobody knows exactly what the halving will do to Bittensor's price. But if Bitcoin is comparable, that suggests a 10x or a 20x over 2026 is possible (that would put $TAO price at $3000 - $6000).
State of TAO report, on the 15 December 2025 halving, with Bitcoin's 2012 to 2013 run as the comparison.
Previously, the mechanism was based on Subnet token price: whoever had the highest price won the most new $TAO. But this allowed early winners that had already achieved high market caps to rest. A 'liquidity aristocracy' arose. Inertia supplied them with a moat. ... The chain is generous – and it is savage and merciless.
State of TAO report, explaining the TAO Flow emission change of early 2026 and why he approves of it.
At this time, Bittensor does not have a true competitor. Bittensor was fair-launched, just like Bitcoin. This is extremely hard to pull off, and now serves as a significant moat – one that could probably not be replicated today.
State of TAO report, on competition; he adds that no entity owns more than 1% of TAO, which he calls fairer than Bitcoin.
At this time, no Subnet has truly crossed the chasm. True, there is a lot of early success and 'signal'. But no Subnet has yet achieved true breakaway success. ... But we don't know yet if Subnet teams can productize and market products. We don't know whether they can generate breakout revenue.
State of TAO report, stating the risks of the Stillcore thesis.
When you abstract everything away, Bittensor is all about adding an ownership layer and aligning incentives in a decentralized environment. This effectively creates a new form of capitalism. And we think it's the most ferocious form of capitalism. Whole companies and whole departments can be atomized, broken down into their component pieces, and reassembled in the image of Bitcoin's Incentivism.
Conclusion of the State of TAO report.
Once the subnet cap is lifted and we can have more than 128 Subnets, we'll likely see an explosion of new ideas and Subnets. 'Bittensor is a Y-Combinator that anyone can join,' as our friends at Unsupervised Capital recently put it in their 'The Investment Case For Bittensor' report. We agree. And we're betting on it.
Final lines of the State of TAO report, adopting another fund's frame and stating his own position.
My $TAO vibe-miner is an attempt to create the Bittensor version of this. ... A Claw, on Bittensor hosting ... with its own TAO wallet ... It pays for its own life. ... many (most?) subnets require 'human alpha' to win: no Claw or Claude can yet match that.
An X reply quoting a post about self-funding AI agents, describing his own experiment mining subnets with an autonomous agent and admitting it keeps getting deregistered.
Imagine if Satoshi didn't do decentralized Bitcoin and instead went to VCs ... TAO's proposition is, we're not going to hire anybody. You have Earth's best minds competing against each other and they don't have to take a job ... You can't beat contestonomics that have financial incentives worldwide. It's the most efficient form of capitalism ever invented
Spoken in a video interview and transcribed by a third-party account on X that clipped it; the original video was not reached.
But Sam is not a key man for this ecosystem. The researchers who did the technical work, the miners who contributed compute, the validators who evaluated quality, they all remain, and Bittensor is 128 subnets, 482,000+ wallets, and an ecosystem of builders who are not going anywhere. One actor left the stage. The production continues.
From The Show Goes On (TAO), a Stillcore Capital X Article published the day after Covenant AI founder Sam Dare exited Bittensor; signed by the fund he co-runs, not by him alone.
Does TAO have governance defects? Yes. Does it need to become more decentralized? Yes, and Const has acknowledged this openly, with reforms underway for months. But the way to address those concerns is to build, not to rug your own investors and wrap a cash grab in the language of principle.
Same Stillcore Capital article, conceding the governance critique while rejecting Sam Dare's exit; signed by the fund, not by him alone.
The most important bubble chart: month-long Bittensor subnets, denominated in $TAO. What I care about MOST is how subnet bets OVER TIME expressed in $TAO (not dollars) do. The name of the game is: Accumulate as much $TAO as possible -- like it's BTC in 2013.
An X post sharing a subnet performance chart two weeks after the Covenant exit, telling holders how to keep score.
Now an advisor to a public TAO holding company, he compresses the thesis to Bittensor is where Bitcoin was in 2013, early, misunderstood, and inevitable 034, while Hash Rate turns to bridges, TAO as a reserve currency, and subnet tokens reaching other chains 035.
btc in 2013Shift The audience widens to public-market investors; the 2013 Bitcoin frame becomes the single repeated sentence.
I wrote the case for Bitcoin when almost nobody owned it, and I believe Bittensor today is where Bitcoin was in 2013 — early, misunderstood, and inevitable. TAO Synergies is one of the only ways public market investors can get real exposure to decentralized AI, and the team actually understands the protocol mechanics, not just the ticker.
His attributed quote in the press release announcing his appointment as advisor to TAO Synergies, a public company holding TAO.
Hash Rate - Ep. 185: $TAO On BASE + Robinhood Chain ... 02:21 $TAO bridges to BASE and Robinhood 07:14 Security and Chainlink CCIP for bridge safety ... 27:14 $TAO as a reserve currency 34:41 Meme coin integrations 40:36 Simplifying cross-chain access 45:34 Future: Subnet Tokens Are Coming!
His YouTube description and chapter list for a Hash Rate episode on TAO bridging to other chains.
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 takes Bitcoin's mining contest and makes it programmable: a chain pays the best freelancers in the world to complete useful tasks, adding an ownership layer and aligned incentives to open work.
Instead of forming a 'company', imagine you make a list of 'tasks'. Freelancers -- some with PhD's -- from all over the world compete to finish each task for you THE BEST. It's a contest. And only the best freelancers get paid ... But not by you. A Bitcoin-like blockchain pays them. That's Bittensor.
The result: Bitcoin created $2.5 trillion in value and Earth's largest supercomputer in aggregate, 500x larger than the nearest competitor. Bittensor says, Hmm. This 'task contest' mining idea worked exceedingly well once. Maybe it can be replicated across multiple AI (and other) domains. So Bittensor takes Bitcoin's mining idea and expands it. Bittensor makes mining programmable.
When you abstract everything away, Bittensor is all about adding an ownership layer and aligning incentives in a decentralized environment. This effectively creates a new form of capitalism. And we think it's the most ferocious form of capitalism. Whole companies and whole departments can be atomized, broken down into their component pieces, and reassembled in the image of Bitcoin's Incentivism.
Companies and departments get atomised and reassembled as open source startups anyone can join or invest in, with an explosion of subnets once the cap lifts.
When you abstract everything away, Bittensor is all about adding an ownership layer and aligning incentives in a decentralized environment. This effectively creates a new form of capitalism. And we think it's the most ferocious form of capitalism. Whole companies and whole departments can be atomized, broken down into their component pieces, and reassembled in the image of Bitcoin's Incentivism.
Once the subnet cap is lifted and we can have more than 128 Subnets, we'll likely see an explosion of new ideas and Subnets. 'Bittensor is a Y-Combinator that anyone can join,' as our friends at Unsupervised Capital recently put it in their 'The Investment Case For Bittensor' report. We agree. And we're betting on it.
Bittensor Subnets are 'open source startups'. Anyone can join one of these startups by becoming a Miner. And anyone can invest in them by buying Subnet tokens. Because the whole world competes, you get this insanely efficient product creation engine.
Merciless, continuous competition: no dead weight, no resting on past wins, the weakest culled daily by a chain that is generous and savage at once; governance defects are to be fixed by building, not by walking away.
Everything in Bittensor is contests within contests to win new $TAO. ... It's contests within contests. It's very Darwinian. It's very 'Hunger Games'. And it's merciless: the weakest subnets and the weakest miners are regularly culled by the chain. ... Every day is a new gladiatorial round.
Like Bitcoin, miners can join or leave anytime. It's open to anyone, anywhere on earth. For this reason, some call Bittensor an 'Open Economy'. Others call it 'Incentivism'. We call it the most ferocious form of capitalism yet invented. Everyone competes, always. Only the most excellent get anything. And everyone is re-evaluated continuously: you cannot rest.
Previously, the mechanism was based on Subnet token price: whoever had the highest price won the most new $TAO. But this allowed early winners that had already achieved high market caps to rest. A 'liquidity aristocracy' arose. Inertia supplied them with a moat. ... The chain is generous – and it is savage and merciless.
Does TAO have governance defects? Yes. Does it need to become more decentralized? Yes, and Const has acknowledged this openly, with reforms underway for months. But the way to address those concerns is to build, not to rug your own investors and wrap a cash grab in the language of principle.
What is broken that Bittensor answers, in their telling.
Closed, large, centralised systems lose to open ones throughout computing history; you cannot fight the whole world.
We've seen the same fractal repeat many times in compu-history: open (aka 'The Bazaar') wins over closed, large and centralized ('the Cathedral') almost every time. ... The lesson is clear: You can't fight the whole world. Open-source movements typically attract the best minds from all over the world to contribute.
AI commodities are hard to monetise, Bittensor's wallets were unusable for years so no new money entered, and no subnet has yet crossed the chasm into breakout revenue.
17:52 Bittensor's Structure and Incentive Mechanisms ... 32:27 Monetizing AI Commodities: The Paywall Dilemma ... 38:07 The Dream Scenario: Partnerships with Big Tech 41:06 Competing with Centralized AI Giants ... 46:24 Dynamic Tao: A Marketplace for Subnet Rewards 56:26 The Future of dTao and Market Forces
Over the last four years, Bittensor wallets have been like early Bitcoin or Ethereum wallets: ganky, not consumer-ready, and difficult for consumers (even crypto-savvy consumers) to use or understand. ... It's been the same ~20,000 participants trading against each other for the last year. ... No new money was entering. That just changed.
At this time, no Subnet has truly crossed the chasm. True, there is a lot of early success and 'signal'. But no Subnet has yet achieved true breakaway success. ... But we don't know yet if Subnet teams can productize and market products. We don't know whether they can generate breakout revenue.
The 2024 wallet hack, a liquidity aristocracy under early dTAO, and the Covenant founder's exit are the institutional stresses he names, each answered by the network's response rather than by doubt in the design.
00:00 Introduction and @Chamath's Mention of #Bittensor on @theallinpod ... 27:12 The $TAO hack - How? Major or minor? 33:29 The Foundation's Response and Reimbursement ... 41:52 Funding of a Bittensor Competitor 46:26 Subnets in Bittensor
Previously, the mechanism was based on Subnet token price: whoever had the highest price won the most new $TAO. But this allowed early winners that had already achieved high market caps to rest. A 'liquidity aristocracy' arose. Inertia supplied them with a moat. ... The chain is generous – and it is savage and merciless.
But Sam is not a key man for this ecosystem. The researchers who did the technical work, the miners who contributed compute, the validators who evaluated quality, they all remain, and Bittensor is 128 subnets, 482,000+ wallets, and an ecosystem of builders who are not going anywhere. One actor left the stage. The production continues.
Does TAO have governance defects? Yes. Does it need to become more decentralized? Yes, and Const has acknowledged this openly, with reforms underway for months. But the way to address those concerns is to build, not to rug your own investors and wrap a cash grab in the language of principle.
The tailwinds they cite.
The first halving, consumer wallets arriving in December 2025, an expected $1B subnet that would pull attention and TAO demand the way ICOs pulled ETH, and public-market vehicles now offering exposure.
At Stillcore, we suspect we will see one or more breakout subnets in 2026. We think at least one Subnet token will reach a market cap of $1B. ... If this occurs, the demand for $TAO will spike rapidly. Why? Because you need $TAO to get Subnet tokens. $TAO is the coin of the realm.
Bittensor has the exact same economics as Bitcoin, by design. This includes a halving at roughly 4-year intervals. ... Nobody knows exactly what the halving will do to Bittensor's price. But if Bitcoin is comparable, that suggests a 10x or a 20x over 2026 is possible (that would put $TAO price at $3000 - $6000).
Over the last four years, Bittensor wallets have been like early Bitcoin or Ethereum wallets: ganky, not consumer-ready, and difficult for consumers (even crypto-savvy consumers) to use or understand. ... It's been the same ~20,000 participants trading against each other for the last year. ... No new money was entering. That just changed.
TaoDaily.io is the new TechCrunch. Everything Bittensor summarized on the front page. Every boom period has one of these - Daily $TAO is this cycle's.
I wrote the case for Bitcoin when almost nobody owned it, and I believe Bittensor today is where Bitcoin was in 2013 — early, misunderstood, and inevitable. TAO Synergies is one of the only ways public market investors can get real exposure to decentralized AI, and the team actually understands the protocol mechanics, not just the ticker.
Hash Rate - Ep. 185: $TAO On BASE + Robinhood Chain ... 02:21 $TAO bridges to BASE and Robinhood 07:14 Security and Chainlink CCIP for bridge safety ... 27:14 $TAO as a reserve currency 34:41 Meme coin integrations 40:36 Simplifying cross-chain access 45:34 Future: Subnet Tokens Are Coming!
We've seen the same fractal repeat many times in compu-history: open (aka 'The Bazaar') wins over closed, large and centralized ('the Cathedral') almost every time. ... The lesson is clear: You can't fight the whole world. Open-source movements typically attract the best minds from all over the world to contribute.
Who they talk to and what they tell them.
Newcomers who find the network hard to grasp, and investors and holders told to keep score in TAO and accumulate it as if it were 2013 Bitcoin; subnet builders are addressed through weekly Hash Rate interviews.
Like early Bitcoin, Bittensor is hard to explain to newcomers. But the explanations and metaphors have improved over time. So it's perhaps best to take it from the top
Instead of forming a 'company', imagine you make a list of 'tasks'. Freelancers -- some with PhD's -- from all over the world compete to finish each task for you THE BEST. It's a contest. And only the best freelancers get paid ... But not by you. A Bitcoin-like blockchain pays them. That's Bittensor.
The most important bubble chart: month-long Bittensor subnets, denominated in $TAO. What I care about MOST is how subnet bets OVER TIME expressed in $TAO (not dollars) do. The name of the game is: Accumulate as much $TAO as possible -- like it's BTC in 2013.
I wrote the case for Bitcoin when almost nobody owned it, and I believe Bittensor today is where Bitcoin was in 2013 — early, misunderstood, and inevitable. TAO Synergies is one of the only ways public market investors can get real exposure to decentralized AI, and the team actually understands the protocol mechanics, not just the ticker.
You can think of Subnets as 128 AI startups. ... To get a Subnet token, you must stake $TAO. This means that subnet tokens ARE rehypothecated $TAO under the hood. ... Subnet tokens and $TAO are simply two versions of the same thing.
00:00 Introduction to Subnet 19 in BitTensor ... 32:02 Dynamic Tao (DTAO) and Subnet Value 33:04 Incentive Mechanism and Education in BitTensor 39:38 The Rise of Open-Source AI Models ... 51:24 The Unique Community and Heart of BitTensor
Hash Rate - Ep. 74: @ReadyAI_ Bittensor SubNet 33 ... 'A Decentralized ScaleAI' on $TAO ... 20:46 Why Choose BitTensor for AI Solutions? 24:05 Dynamic Tao and Its Implications ... 33:13 Dynamic Tao Explained 36:04 Competition in the Decentralized AI Space
Bittensor Subnets are 'open source startups'. Anyone can join one of these startups by becoming a Miner. And anyone can invest in them by buying Subnet tokens. Because the whole world competes, you get this insanely efficient product creation engine.
What they set it against.
OpenAI and centralised AI giants, Scale AI, VC-funded startups, and the Covenant founder whose exit he treats as a cash grab rather than a principled critique.
Hash Rate - Ep. 46: Bittensor AI Venture Capital ... $25M committed to #Bittensor ecosystem!!! ... AI startups make more revenue on Bittensor (!) - $TAO to 1 Trillion+? A #Bitcoin-like asset? ... Bittensor is generating more revenue than OpenAI? - Are blockchains socialism? Or capitalism? Or BOTH?
Bittensor TAO is probably the most interesting thing in BOTH crypto and AI afoot right now. The coin nearly doubled in value last week: Bitcoin economics + open AI subnetworks = 'actual' OpenAI -- the 'Linux' of the space. Now ReadyAI -- a subnet -- is attacking Scale.AI and making dents already.
Hash Rate - Ep. 74: @ReadyAI_ Bittensor SubNet 33 ... 'A Decentralized ScaleAI' on $TAO ... 20:46 Why Choose BitTensor for AI Solutions? 24:05 Dynamic Tao and Its Implications ... 33:13 Dynamic Tao Explained 36:04 Competition in the Decentralized AI Space
Imagine if Satoshi didn't do decentralized Bitcoin and instead went to VCs ... TAO's proposition is, we're not going to hire anybody. You have Earth's best minds competing against each other and they don't have to take a job ... You can't beat contestonomics that have financial incentives worldwide. It's the most efficient form of capitalism ever invented
But Sam is not a key man for this ecosystem. The researchers who did the technical work, the miners who contributed compute, the validators who evaluated quality, they all remain, and Bittensor is 128 subnets, 482,000+ wallets, and an ecosystem of builders who are not going anywhere. One actor left the stage. The production continues.
Does TAO have governance defects? Yes. Does it need to become more decentralized? Yes, and Const has acknowledged this openly, with reforms underway for months. But the way to address those concerns is to build, not to rug your own investors and wrap a cash grab in the language of principle.
17:52 Bittensor's Structure and Incentive Mechanisms ... 32:27 Monetizing AI Commodities: The Paywall Dilemma ... 38:07 The Dream Scenario: Partnerships with Big Tech 41:06 Competing with Centralized AI Giants ... 46:24 Dynamic Tao: A Marketplace for Subnet Rewards 56:26 The Future of dTao and Market Forces
Category frame, differentiator, reason to believe.
A Bitcoin-like asset and the possible third great coin; the Linux and the actual OpenAI of AI; an S&P 500 ETF of AI startups; above all the most ferocious form of capitalism yet invented.
Hash Rate - Ep. 46: Bittensor AI Venture Capital ... $25M committed to #Bittensor ecosystem!!! ... AI startups make more revenue on Bittensor (!) - $TAO to 1 Trillion+? A #Bitcoin-like asset? ... Bittensor is generating more revenue than OpenAI? - Are blockchains socialism? Or capitalism? Or BOTH?
Great analysis of $TAO in this morning's @arca newsletter …I'm starting to think (like @DavFields said on the last Hash Rate) — that: $TAO may be the 'Third Great Coin' alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. The intersecting flywheels of PoW PLUS required staking for…
Bittensor TAO is probably the most interesting thing in BOTH crypto and AI afoot right now. The coin nearly doubled in value last week: Bitcoin economics + open AI subnetworks = 'actual' OpenAI -- the 'Linux' of the space. Now ReadyAI -- a subnet -- is attacking Scale.AI and making dents already.
Thus $TAO tracks the combined value of all the Subnets akin to how an S&P 500 ETF tracks the combined value of the world's top 500 companies. In a certain sense, all Subnets are part of a 'TAO keiretsu'. They are at once separate and distinct, but united by a super-entity, a base token, that aligns them all.
Like Bitcoin, miners can join or leave anytime. It's open to anyone, anywhere on earth. For this reason, some call Bittensor an 'Open Economy'. Others call it 'Incentivism'. We call it the most ferocious form of capitalism yet invented. Everyone competes, always. Only the most excellent get anything. And everyone is re-evaluated continuously: you cannot rest.
Imagine if Satoshi didn't do decentralized Bitcoin and instead went to VCs ... TAO's proposition is, we're not going to hire anybody. You have Earth's best minds competing against each other and they don't have to take a job ... You can't beat contestonomics that have financial incentives worldwide. It's the most efficient form of capitalism ever invented
$TAO is up 130% this month. Why? And what's next? ... 02:56 Understanding Proof of Work and BitTensor's Unique Approach 06:09 The Evolution of BitTensor: From Single Network to Subnets ... 14:59 Monetization and the Duality of Capitalism in BitTensor 18:07 Comparing BitTensor to Bitcoin Mining ... 42:20 The Future of TAO and Its Market Potential
Instead of forming a 'company', imagine you make a list of 'tasks'. Freelancers -- some with PhD's -- from all over the world compete to finish each task for you THE BEST. It's a contest. And only the best freelancers get paid ... But not by you. A Bitcoin-like blockchain pays them. That's Bittensor.
Once the subnet cap is lifted and we can have more than 128 Subnets, we'll likely see an explosion of new ideas and Subnets. 'Bittensor is a Y-Combinator that anyone can join,' as our friends at Unsupervised Capital recently put it in their 'The Investment Case For Bittensor' report. We agree. And we're betting on it.
Proof of useful work instead of gumball guessing, subnet tokens that are rehypothecated TAO so value flows back to the base asset, and a fair launch that cannot be repeated.
In Bitcoin, the contest to 'find the hash of the previous block first' basically boils down to guessing the number of gumballs in a jar. ... the actual work of 'guessing gumballs' is itself very wasteful. By contrast ... the 'work' done in Bittensor mining contests is actually very useful. Bittensor calls this Proof of Useful Work.
You can think of Subnets as 128 AI startups. ... To get a Subnet token, you must stake $TAO. This means that subnet tokens ARE rehypothecated $TAO under the hood. ... Subnet tokens and $TAO are simply two versions of the same thing.
At this time, Bittensor does not have a true competitor. Bittensor was fair-launched, just like Bitcoin. This is extremely hard to pull off, and now serves as a significant moat – one that could probably not be replicated today.
The result: Bitcoin created $2.5 trillion in value and Earth's largest supercomputer in aggregate, 500x larger than the nearest competitor. Bittensor says, Hmm. This 'task contest' mining idea worked exceedingly well once. Maybe it can be replicated across multiple AI (and other) domains. So Bittensor takes Bitcoin's mining idea and expands it. Bittensor makes mining programmable.
Bittensor Subnets are 'open source startups'. Anyone can join one of these startups by becoming a Miner. And anyone can invest in them by buying Subnet tokens. Because the whole world competes, you get this insanely efficient product creation engine.
Bitcoin already proved the contest model at $2.5 trillion scale; open beats closed in every prior era; the halving and the subnet ICO phase give a reason to expect repricing.
The result: Bitcoin created $2.5 trillion in value and Earth's largest supercomputer in aggregate, 500x larger than the nearest competitor. Bittensor says, Hmm. This 'task contest' mining idea worked exceedingly well once. Maybe it can be replicated across multiple AI (and other) domains. So Bittensor takes Bitcoin's mining idea and expands it. Bittensor makes mining programmable.
We've seen the same fractal repeat many times in compu-history: open (aka 'The Bazaar') wins over closed, large and centralized ('the Cathedral') almost every time. ... The lesson is clear: You can't fight the whole world. Open-source movements typically attract the best minds from all over the world to contribute.
Bittensor has the exact same economics as Bitcoin, by design. This includes a halving at roughly 4-year intervals. ... Nobody knows exactly what the halving will do to Bittensor's price. But if Bitcoin is comparable, that suggests a 10x or a 20x over 2026 is possible (that would put $TAO price at $3000 - $6000).
At Stillcore, we suspect we will see one or more breakout subnets in 2026. We think at least one Subnet token will reach a market cap of $1B. ... If this occurs, the demand for $TAO will spike rapidly. Why? Because you need $TAO to get Subnet tokens. $TAO is the coin of the realm.
$TAO is up 130% this month. Why? And what's next? ... 02:56 Understanding Proof of Work and BitTensor's Unique Approach 06:09 The Evolution of BitTensor: From Single Network to Subnets ... 14:59 Monetization and the Duality of Capitalism in BitTensor 18:07 Comparing BitTensor to Bitcoin Mining ... 42:20 The Future of TAO and Its Market Potential
Great analysis of $TAO in this morning's @arca newsletter …I'm starting to think (like @DavFields said on the last Hash Rate) — that: $TAO may be the 'Third Great Coin' alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. The intersecting flywheels of PoW PLUS required staking for…
At this time, Bittensor does not have a true competitor. Bittensor was fair-launched, just like Bitcoin. This is extremely hard to pull off, and now serves as a significant moat – one that could probably not be replicated today.
The benefit they claim, the feeling they sell, what joining says about you.
Cheaper AI products built faster by self-recruiting global miners, subnet tokens backed by staked TAO, and a first $100M subnet nine weeks after dTAO.
Bittensor Subnets are 'open source startups'. Anyone can join one of these startups by becoming a Miner. And anyone can invest in them by buying Subnet tokens. Because the whole world competes, you get this insanely efficient product creation engine.
Bittensor $TAO has its first $100M subnet, just 9 weeks after dTAO launch. Congrats Chutes (SN64)! Chutes is 'serverless AI' providing 'instant on' AI model hosting (DeepSeek, Mistral, etc.) for 85% less cost than AWS.
You can think of Subnets as 128 AI startups. ... To get a Subnet token, you must stake $TAO. This means that subnet tokens ARE rehypothecated $TAO under the hood. ... Subnet tokens and $TAO are simply two versions of the same thing.
The most important bubble chart: month-long Bittensor subnets, denominated in $TAO. What I care about MOST is how subnet bets OVER TIME expressed in $TAO (not dollars) do. The name of the game is: Accumulate as much $TAO as possible -- like it's BTC in 2013.
Thus $TAO tracks the combined value of all the Subnets akin to how an S&P 500 ETF tracks the combined value of the world's top 500 companies. In a certain sense, all Subnets are part of a 'TAO keiretsu'. They are at once separate and distinct, but united by a super-entity, a base token, that aligns them all.
At Stillcore, we suspect we will see one or more breakout subnets in 2026. We think at least one Subnet token will reach a market cap of $1B. ... If this occurs, the demand for $TAO will spike rapidly. Why? Because you need $TAO to get Subnet tokens. $TAO is the coin of the realm.
He points to the unique community and heart of the network as its felt appeal.
00:00 Introduction to Subnet 19 in BitTensor ... 32:02 Dynamic Tao (DTAO) and Subnet Value 33:04 Incentive Mechanism and Education in BitTensor 39:38 The Rise of Open-Source AI Models ... 51:24 The Unique Community and Heart of BitTensor
Joining means competing rather than taking a job, and he models it by running his own autonomous vibe-miner and reporting its failures.
My $TAO vibe-miner is an attempt to create the Bittensor version of this. ... A Claw, on Bittensor hosting ... with its own TAO wallet ... It pays for its own life. ... many (most?) subnets require 'human alpha' to win: no Claw or Claude can yet match that.
Imagine if Satoshi didn't do decentralized Bitcoin and instead went to VCs ... TAO's proposition is, we're not going to hire anybody. You have Earth's best minds competing against each other and they don't have to take a job ... You can't beat contestonomics that have financial incentives worldwide. It's the most efficient form of capitalism ever invented
The line they repeat and the proof they point to.
Bittensor makes mining programmable and is the most ferocious form of capitalism yet invented; TAO today is where Bitcoin was in 2013, so accumulate it.
The result: Bitcoin created $2.5 trillion in value and Earth's largest supercomputer in aggregate, 500x larger than the nearest competitor. Bittensor says, Hmm. This 'task contest' mining idea worked exceedingly well once. Maybe it can be replicated across multiple AI (and other) domains. So Bittensor takes Bitcoin's mining idea and expands it. Bittensor makes mining programmable.
Like Bitcoin, miners can join or leave anytime. It's open to anyone, anywhere on earth. For this reason, some call Bittensor an 'Open Economy'. Others call it 'Incentivism'. We call it the most ferocious form of capitalism yet invented. Everyone competes, always. Only the most excellent get anything. And everyone is re-evaluated continuously: you cannot rest.
The most important bubble chart: month-long Bittensor subnets, denominated in $TAO. What I care about MOST is how subnet bets OVER TIME expressed in $TAO (not dollars) do. The name of the game is: Accumulate as much $TAO as possible -- like it's BTC in 2013.
I wrote the case for Bitcoin when almost nobody owned it, and I believe Bittensor today is where Bitcoin was in 2013 — early, misunderstood, and inevitable. TAO Synergies is one of the only ways public market investors can get real exposure to decentralized AI, and the team actually understands the protocol mechanics, not just the ticker.
Bittensor TAO is probably the most interesting thing in BOTH crypto and AI afoot right now. The coin nearly doubled in value last week: Bitcoin economics + open AI subnetworks = 'actual' OpenAI -- the 'Linux' of the space. Now ReadyAI -- a subnet -- is attacking Scale.AI and making dents already.
When you abstract everything away, Bittensor is all about adding an ownership layer and aligning incentives in a decentralized environment. This effectively creates a new form of capitalism. And we think it's the most ferocious form of capitalism. Whole companies and whole departments can be atomized, broken down into their component pieces, and reassembled in the image of Bitcoin's Incentivism.
Price moves (up 130% in a month), the first $100M subnet, subnets beating incumbents on cost, and Bitcoin's own halving history.
$TAO is up 130% this month. Why? And what's next? ... 02:56 Understanding Proof of Work and BitTensor's Unique Approach 06:09 The Evolution of BitTensor: From Single Network to Subnets ... 14:59 Monetization and the Duality of Capitalism in BitTensor 18:07 Comparing BitTensor to Bitcoin Mining ... 42:20 The Future of TAO and Its Market Potential
Bittensor $TAO has its first $100M subnet, just 9 weeks after dTAO launch. Congrats Chutes (SN64)! Chutes is 'serverless AI' providing 'instant on' AI model hosting (DeepSeek, Mistral, etc.) for 85% less cost than AWS.
Bittensor has the exact same economics as Bitcoin, by design. This includes a halving at roughly 4-year intervals. ... Nobody knows exactly what the halving will do to Bittensor's price. But if Bitcoin is comparable, that suggests a 10x or a 20x over 2026 is possible (that would put $TAO price at $3000 - $6000).
00:00 Introduction and @Chamath's Mention of #Bittensor on @theallinpod ... 27:12 The $TAO hack - How? Major or minor? 33:29 The Foundation's Response and Reimbursement ... 41:52 Funding of a Bittensor Competitor 46:26 Subnets in Bittensor
Register more than claim.
Enthusiast's capitals and exclamation marks in show notes, vivid violent metaphors in long form, and candid admissions of what does not yet work.
Hash Rate - Ep. 46: Bittensor AI Venture Capital ... $25M committed to #Bittensor ecosystem!!! ... AI startups make more revenue on Bittensor (!) - $TAO to 1 Trillion+? A #Bitcoin-like asset? ... Bittensor is generating more revenue than OpenAI? - Are blockchains socialism? Or capitalism? Or BOTH?
Everything in Bittensor is contests within contests to win new $TAO. ... It's contests within contests. It's very Darwinian. It's very 'Hunger Games'. And it's merciless: the weakest subnets and the weakest miners are regularly culled by the chain. ... Every day is a new gladiatorial round.
At this time, no Subnet has truly crossed the chasm. True, there is a lot of early success and 'signal'. But no Subnet has yet achieved true breakaway success. ... But we don't know yet if Subnet teams can productize and market products. We don't know whether they can generate breakout revenue.
My $TAO vibe-miner is an attempt to create the Bittensor version of this. ... A Claw, on Bittensor hosting ... with its own TAO wallet ... It pays for its own life. ... many (most?) subnets require 'human alpha' to win: no Claw or Claude can yet match that.
TaoDaily.io is the new TechCrunch. Everything Bittensor summarized on the front page. Every boom period has one of these - Daily $TAO is this cycle's.
00:00 Introduction and @Chamath's Mention of #Bittensor on @theallinpod ... 27:12 The $TAO hack - How? Major or minor? 33:29 The Foundation's Response and Reimbursement ... 41:52 Funding of a Bittensor Competitor 46:26 Subnets in Bittensor
Like early Bitcoin, Bittensor is hard to explain to newcomers. But the explanations and metaphors have improved over time. So it's perhaps best to take it from the top
Hash Rate - Ep. 185: $TAO On BASE + Robinhood Chain ... 02:21 $TAO bridges to BASE and Robinhood 07:14 Security and Chainlink CCIP for bridge safety ... 27:14 $TAO as a reserve currency 34:41 Meme coin integrations 40:36 Simplifying cross-chain access 45:34 Future: Subnet Tokens Are Coming!
How they describe their own relation to it.
Podcast host turned fund partner and public-company advisor who says he is betting on the network, and who also mines it with his own agent.
Once the subnet cap is lifted and we can have more than 128 Subnets, we'll likely see an explosion of new ideas and Subnets. 'Bittensor is a Y-Combinator that anyone can join,' as our friends at Unsupervised Capital recently put it in their 'The Investment Case For Bittensor' report. We agree. And we're betting on it.
My $TAO vibe-miner is an attempt to create the Bittensor version of this. ... A Claw, on Bittensor hosting ... with its own TAO wallet ... It pays for its own life. ... many (most?) subnets require 'human alpha' to win: no Claw or Claude can yet match that.
I wrote the case for Bitcoin when almost nobody owned it, and I believe Bittensor today is where Bitcoin was in 2013 — early, misunderstood, and inevitable. TAO Synergies is one of the only ways public market investors can get real exposure to decentralized AI, and the team actually understands the protocol mechanics, not just the ticker.
But Sam is not a key man for this ecosystem. The researchers who did the technical work, the miners who contributed compute, the validators who evaluated quality, they all remain, and Bittensor is 128 subnets, 482,000+ wallets, and an ecosystem of builders who are not going anywhere. One actor left the stage. The production continues.
What they call things, and refuse to call them.
He adopts Dynamic Tao and dTAO early as a marketplace for subnet rewards, coins TAO keiretsu and liquidity aristocracy, relays Proof of Useful Work, and rejects Open Economy and Incentivism in favour of ferocious capitalism.
00:00 Introduction to Subnet 19 in BitTensor ... 32:02 Dynamic Tao (DTAO) and Subnet Value 33:04 Incentive Mechanism and Education in BitTensor 39:38 The Rise of Open-Source AI Models ... 51:24 The Unique Community and Heart of BitTensor
17:52 Bittensor's Structure and Incentive Mechanisms ... 32:27 Monetizing AI Commodities: The Paywall Dilemma ... 38:07 The Dream Scenario: Partnerships with Big Tech 41:06 Competing with Centralized AI Giants ... 46:24 Dynamic Tao: A Marketplace for Subnet Rewards 56:26 The Future of dTao and Market Forces
In Bitcoin, the contest to 'find the hash of the previous block first' basically boils down to guessing the number of gumballs in a jar. ... the actual work of 'guessing gumballs' is itself very wasteful. By contrast ... the 'work' done in Bittensor mining contests is actually very useful. Bittensor calls this Proof of Useful Work.
Thus $TAO tracks the combined value of all the Subnets akin to how an S&P 500 ETF tracks the combined value of the world's top 500 companies. In a certain sense, all Subnets are part of a 'TAO keiretsu'. They are at once separate and distinct, but united by a super-entity, a base token, that aligns them all.
Like Bitcoin, miners can join or leave anytime. It's open to anyone, anywhere on earth. For this reason, some call Bittensor an 'Open Economy'. Others call it 'Incentivism'. We call it the most ferocious form of capitalism yet invented. Everyone competes, always. Only the most excellent get anything. And everyone is re-evaluated continuously: you cannot rest.
Previously, the mechanism was based on Subnet token price: whoever had the highest price won the most new $TAO. But this allowed early winners that had already achieved high market caps to rest. A 'liquidity aristocracy' arose. Inertia supplied them with a moat. ... The chain is generous – and it is savage and merciless.
Imagine if Satoshi didn't do decentralized Bitcoin and instead went to VCs ... TAO's proposition is, we're not going to hire anybody. You have Earth's best minds competing against each other and they don't have to take a job ... You can't beat contestonomics that have financial incentives worldwide. It's the most efficient form of capitalism ever invented
Hash Rate - Ep. 185: $TAO On BASE + Robinhood Chain ... 02:21 $TAO bridges to BASE and Robinhood 07:14 Security and Chainlink CCIP for bridge safety ... 27:14 $TAO as a reserve currency 34:41 Meme coin integrations 40:36 Simplifying cross-chain access 45:34 Future: Subnet Tokens Are Coming!
Hash Rate - Ep. 74: @ReadyAI_ Bittensor SubNet 33 ... 'A Decentralized ScaleAI' on $TAO ... 20:46 Why Choose BitTensor for AI Solutions? 24:05 Dynamic Tao and Its Implications ... 33:13 Dynamic Tao Explained 36:04 Competition in the Decentralized AI Space
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.
Something wrong or missing? Quotes are corrected as they arrive; a misattribution is removed first and argued after. How to file one · GitHub issue