Subnet Legibility Index · snapshot 2026-09-09 · rubric v1.0 Exploit Summit 2026 · Montreal ·

SN 93. Rank 15 of 32 by emission

Bitcast

2.0% of emission5 miners · 9 validatorsregistration 0.005 TAOverified 2026-09-09

A decentralized content marketing protocol on Bittensor. Creators are rewarded for content with verifiable brand attention.

In their own words · bitcast.network
Explained from zero · media · written 2026-09-10

SN93 Bitcast is a job board for sponsored videos with no agency in the middle: brands post briefs, YouTubers make the videos, and pay is set by YouTube's own cash register.

The commodity, explained from zero

The product is attention: a brand's message inside a video that real people watch. Bitcast calls its version "proof of attention": a creator publishes a YouTube video (or, since a 2025 update, an ad read inside a longer video) that matches a brand's brief, and validators check through YouTube's own analytics that people watched.

The unit of pay is dollars. Validators "score videos in USD terms" and then convert to the subnet's token. An August 2025 post set a target of "$1,200+" per thousand views, "several times the industry norm", to draw creators who have never heard of Bittensor. The dashboard on September 9 reads 7,537 pieces of content rewarded, $524.1K paid to creators over the subnet's life, 1.1K creators (78 on YouTube, 1,041 on X), and $422.3K of revenue, of which $261.8K was spent buying the subnet's token back. That revenue is shown as a ledger of 1,204 transactions on Ethereum, Solana, X and YouTube, but no brand is named anywhere.

Why it is on Bittensor at all

The site's only statement of the difference is the phrase "a decentralized content marketing protocol". The materials do not compare Bitcast's cost or reach to an agency's. What the design does change is who sets pay: not a negotiator but YouTube's revenue meter, read by strangers who stake money to act as judges. The comparison breaks here: a job board pays the worker once, in cash, while Bitcast pays in a token whose price moves, and the dashboard shows 62 percent of revenue going back into that token rather than to creators.

How the work gets done

Miners are creators: they run a small program that hands validators an access token for their YouTube channel, and they publish videos that satisfy active briefs. Only channels in the YouTube Partner Program, the tier YouTube itself pays, are eligible. Validators (the judges) fetch the briefs, use a language model to decide whether each video matches one, pull revenue and engagement numbers from the YouTube Analytics API over the video's first two weeks, and convert the dollar score into on-chain weights that direct emission, the subnet's share of newly minted TAO. Scores are capped by the channel's previous month, so a sudden spike earns less.

How you would know it works

The revenue page at bitcast.network/revenue is dated daily and lists every revenue and buyback transaction with links to taostats, etherscan and solscan, so a reader can follow the money without trusting the page.

What is missing

There is no page for brands, no price for a brief, and no contact address on the site or on chain; the only support path is a Discord invite inside a 2025 blog post. The scoring formula lives in validator code and in a file written for AI agents (CLAUDE.md), not in prose. The miner guide is the README, which omits how to obtain the YouTube token. The chain identity fills 4 of 7 fields and its description, "The Decentralized Creators Economy", is a tagline. The brand links on the site (Outfold, Stitch3) load as empty pages to a fetcher.

Go deeper

Sources for this explainer

Metaphor: a sponsored-video job board with no agency. Every claim is drawn from the evidence set or the subnet's own materials; "(inferred)" marks a conclusion rather than a quote. Corrections.

How we scored it

Four audiences, four questions each, scored on what a first-time reader can find in five minutes. Method in the rubric.

On-chain identity 4/7
subnet_name
Bitcast
github_repo
github.com
subnet_contact
not set
subnet_url
stats.bitcast.network
discord
not set
description
The Decentralized Creators Economy
additional
not set

Stakers and validators 3.3

Should I allocate here? · rank 12 of 32 for this audience

Q1What it is 4

Bitcast connects brands with audiences through content creators. Creators (miners) publish YouTube videos satisfying brand briefs

scored in USD terms, front page says proof of attention

Q2Who it is for 5

CONTENT REWARDED 7,537 · UPDATED 2026-09-09

bitcast.networkverifiedlive

with revenue $422.3K, buybacks $261.8K and a transaction audit linking taostats and etherscan, no named brands

Q3How it resists gaming or fails 2

metric is YouTube Partner Program revenue, EMA and weights only in code, exploit resilience in an August 2025 substack post, scattered across README, a machine file and a blog

Q4Identity and documentation 2
bitcast.networkverifiedlive

identity 4 of 7 (contact, discord, additional unset), url redirects to bitcast.network and resolves, github resolves, no staker page, the dashboard shows buybacks and alpha bought back

Miners 2.3

Can I compete, and what wins? · rank 31 of 32 for this audience

Q1What it is 2

Miners serve YouTube OAuth access tokens for the channels they operate.

Publishing videos to briefs is inferable from README and protocol.py, the briefs portal loads campaigns by JS, no spec

Q2Who it is for 2

Only channels with affirmative YouTube Partner Program membership are eligible

in a machine file, no hardware needed, registration cost not stated, scaling favours smaller creators per a 2025 post

Q3How it resists gaming or fails 2

validators score videos in USD terms so emissions track earned USD value, formula and EMA only in validator code, lookback cap in a 2025 post, no immunity or deregistration policy

Q4Identity and documentation 3

setup and run commands with the credentials file format, repo pushed 2026-09-06, no releases or changelog, no step for obtaining YouTube OAuth tokens, README is the whole guide

Buyers and enterprises 1.8

Can I use this today? · rank 23 of 32 for this audience

Q1What it is 2

VISIT OUTFOLD

bitcast.networkverifiedlive

links to outfold.ai and the X page links stitch3.ai, both render as empty JS shells, no brand facing page on bitcast.network, briefs described only in a 2025 substack post

Q2Who it is for 2

Target CPM: $1,200+ (several times the industry norm)

is what creators earn, brands are the named customer, no price for a brief anywhere

Q3How it resists gaming or fails 2

Discord invite in the post is the only support path, no status page, no SLA, no contact address on the site

Q4Identity and documentation 1
bitcast.networkinferredlive

no API docs, no contact on chain or on the site, the site footer links GitHub and Taostats only

Newcomers 3.5

What is this and why does it matter? · rank 15 of 32 for this audience

Q1What it is 4

Proof of attention. A decentralized content marketing protocol on Bittensor. Creators are rewarded for content with verifiable brand attention.

bitcast.networkverifiedlive

Two sentences above the numbers, matches chain

Q2Who it is for 2

A decentralized content marketing protocol on Bittensor

bitcast.networkverifiedlive

is the only difference claim on the site, third party pages say without agencies, no comparison in own materials

Q3How it resists gaming or fails 5
bitcast.networkverifiedlive

dated dashboard (LIVE 2026-09-09) with creators, views, rewards, revenue and a transaction audit whose rows link to taostats, etherscan and solscan

Q4Identity and documentation 3
bitcast.networkverifiedlive

subnet_name Bitcast matches the site, description The Decentralized Creators Economy is not a sentence, url redirects and resolves, no about or learn page

Provenance

How this score came to be. Verified means the scorer fetched the page and the words are on it; inferred means concluded from code, absence, or a third party. The link badge is a separate automated check made before publication.

scored by agent c 2026-09-09, rubric v1.0merged 2026-09-09links verified 2026-09-09: 32 live, 0 unreachable, 1 manual

Something wrong? Corrections of fact are applied as they arrive during the window; score disputes are batched at its close. How to file one · GitHub issue · email.