After practically ten years in crypto, I’ve watched tons of of tasks promise to revolutionize the whole lot from banking to artwork. But these revolutions have largely didn’t materialize.
The difficulty is not know-how. It is that we have been constructing options in search of issues, moderately than specializing in fixing actual challenges and delivering actual worth.
Most tasks create tokens first, utility later. This hypothesis cycle has consumed the trade, measuring success by token value, not precise worth creation. We’re lacking the essential ingredient: a mechanism that rewards constructing helpful issues moderately than constructing over-hyped ineffective issues.
What if there was a protocol that flipped this mannequin and tasks needed to create worth first, then get rewarded? That’s Bittensor.
Bittensor: Rewarding Efficiency Over Mindshare
In some methods Bittensor is just like the Y Combinator of AI. Whereas Y Combinator provides startups cash and mentorship in trade for fairness, Bittensor provides builders incentives by means of token emissions, measures efficiency by means of free market dynamics, and rewards winners with out human gatekeepers.
Consider it as an financial recreation the place impartial groups compete to construct helpful AI companies. Each 12 seconds, the community distributes rewards based mostly purely on usefulness. No advertising and marketing budgets. No insiders. No conventional fundraising. No KOLs. Simply efficiency.
The tokenomics are elegant but highly effective. Like Bitcoin, Bittensor’s native TAO has a set provide cap of 21 million, with 7,200 tokens distributed each day and provide halving each 4 years. This creates real shortage within the type of rewards that have to be earned by means of efficiency moderately than hypothesis.
Here is the place it will get much more attention-grabbing: every subnet has its personal “alpha” token that subnet contributors earn. TAO holders can stake into subnets they imagine in, receiving that subnet’s alpha tokens in return. Larger-performing subnets appeal to extra TAO stake and get a bigger share of each day emissions. This market-driven funding mechanism implies that builders receives a commission provided that their service really works and profitable tasks robotically get extra assets, whereas additionally rewarding those that staked.
These performance-based rewards imply that anybody can construct however the market decides the winner. And, since its open-source software program, if a mission isn’t delivering, others create a greater model.
This makes Bittensor a clear competitors the place all metrics are public. It’s been known as “capitalistic Darwinism.” In different phrases, create worth or get out-competed.
Why Bittensor Adjustments Every thing
Huge Tech’s grip on AI is just getting stronger. Bittensor represents our greatest probability at wresting management and anchoring innovation in an open, clear, and democratic atmosphere the place worth accrues to probably the most performant improvements, moderately than closed programs that profit from outsized community results.
For the general public, Bittensor represents crypto’s authentic promise: coordinating human effort towards helpful outcomes with out intermediaries, committees, or gatekeepers. Worth will get created first by means of competitors, then tokens reward the creators; the alternative of hoping hypothesis drives worth.
For builders, this implies skipping VC pitches, preserving fairness, and getting rewarded instantly for constructing helpful issues. A very powerful infrastructure is being constructed by groups spending “$0 on advertising and marketing, $0 on trade listings” with pure concentrate on worth creation. Neighborhood governance ensures builders aren’t locked out from decision-making.
For customers, this creates entry to quality-competing companies moderately than marketing-budget winners. Customers profit from the upside by supporting the most effective tasks, whereas group governance creates robust bonds between creators and shoppers.
For buyers, Bittensor gives AI publicity with out having to select particular person winners. The staking mechanics drive worth accrual into the community moderately than siphoning it away. Buyers earn upside by supporting top-performing tasks whereas group governance provides them a voice moderately than forcing them to comply with a CEO’s agenda.
The timing could not be higher. With over $55 billion in funding going to the AI sector in Q1 2025, $1.39 billion in funding going to AI brokers previously quarter, crypto funding validates what Bittensor has already constructed. Whereas others are nonetheless fundraising, world-class AI groups are already constructing serverless compute (SN64) and decentralized coaching (SN3), in addition to local weather prediction markets (SN18) and algorithmic buying and selling programs (my mission, SN8).
Bittensor is a brand new paradigm for AI innovation as a result of it is a proving-ground that enables the most effective improvements to win with out synthetic limitations, tilted economics, or incumbent benefits. And, as massively funded firms proceed to dominate AI, it is crucial that we nurture impartial, open ecosystems that reward innovation and grit, clear and clear.
