Bitcoin is now, nearly paradoxically to its unique ethos, being adopted by Wall Road. Bittensor is a brand new finger to “the person” of centralization. It’s a scorching sizzling narrative. With the rise of AI, considerations have arisen in regards to the tech’s focus and centralization.
Bittensor, and its cryptocurrency, TAO, goals to decentralize AI companies. Regardless of dropping practically 53% in 2025, some consider Bittensor is a next-generation Bitcoin for the AI age. However how reasonable is that this optimism?
The Premise and Promise of Bittensor
The community simply accomplished a reward halving on December 15, decreasing its provide of minted cash. The issue is, many have heard this narrative earlier than.
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Loads of cryptocurrencies have claimed to be “the following Bitcoin” – as a result of there’s cash to be made with that story.
Nonetheless, there could possibly be some actual worth for Bittensor over the long term – although it has hurdles to beat, as any kind of bold crypto challenge like this might.
The story of Bittensor shouldn’t be not like Bitcoin: There are highly effective incumbents, and a brand new community can tackle and even upend this world order.
For years, influencers rehashed an usually related, anthemic phrase of “lengthy Bitcoin, brief the banks”. However that now Bitcoin is embedded in Wall Road banks and publicly traded DAT shares, this narrative labored nicely.
A premise is that AI corporations corresponding to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Deepseek have develop into too huge and scary, and other people should be involved about their rise.
Decentralizing synthetic intelligence workloads and changing proof-of-work puzzles with precise real-use AI is Bittensor’s primary gist.
“Bitcoin proved that cryptographic incentives might coordinate a worldwide community of {hardware} to safe a ledger,” Evan Malanga, an government at Yuma, one of many largest backers of the Bittensor platform, informed BeInCrypto. “Bittensor takes that very same mechanism and redirects the compute energy towards one thing that has direct advantages in right now’s world: Coaching and operating AI fashions, purposes, and infrastructure.”
One other Bitcoin? Actually?
It’s vital to notice that Yuma is a subsidiary of Digital Forex Group (DCG), whose agency was one of many earliest backers of varied cryptocurrencies, together with Bitcoin, Zcash, and Decentraland.
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It was additionally an early investor in Coinbase, Circle, and Chainalysis. DCG’s CEO, Barry Silbert, is clearly on board with Bittensor – which for some could possibly be thought of a optimistic sign.
Bittensor does have some Bitcoin-like traits. There are solely 21 million items of TAO, clearly a nod to BTC. Bittensor additionally has halvings, which in December diminished its rewards from 7,200 TAO to three,600 per day.
As a substitute of the energy-intensive proof-of-work riddles Bitcoin makes use of, Bittensor makes use of one thing known as proof-of-intelligence, the place nodes should carry out duties to show their functionality in dealing with AI workloads. The higher a node’s job output high quality, the upper the prospect it may possibly obtain rewards in TAO.
Nodes which are allowed on the Bittensor community are then assigned a subnet, of which there are presently 128. These subnets have totally different AI-related specialties.
“Every subnet is sort of a specialised market for a particular kind of AI service – some concentrate on picture technology, others on language fashions,” mentioned Arrash Yasavolian, the cofounder of Taoshi, which runs a monetary intelligence subnet.
Centralization Versus Decentralization
Considerations about AI usually heart on a number of corporations having concentrated energy. Focus in any trade sometimes means greater costs and poorer companies for patrons – generally each on the similar time.
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Bittensor goals to make AI extra of a worldwide good with its decentralization traits, like having unbiased node operators energy the subnets for its synthetic intelligence capabilities.
“AI is redefining each trade,” mentioned Ken Jon Miyachi, CEO of BitMind, which runs a subnet targeted on deepfake detections on Bittensor. ”Bitcoin revolutionized the shop of worth, however Bittensor is revolutionizing whole financial techniques by making intelligence a worldwide commodity.”
However how decentralized is that this community? On July 10, 2024, the Bittensor community was halted amidst an $8 million hack that drained wallets. The chain was put right into a “protected mode” that produced blocks with none transaction capabilities.
“There are official centralization considerations right now,” famous Taoshi’s Yasavolian. “The OpenTensor basis is the only real social gathering accountable for validating blocks. The highest 10 largest subnet validators comprise about 67% of complete community stake weight.”
Some may argue that Bittensor’s safety dangers and skill to close down the community are antithetical to decentralization. Proponents of the community say that full decentralization will come later, changing into “credibly impartial” the identical means Bitcoin is meant to be for store-of-value functions.
“Bittensor’s long-term strategic objective is to develop into a credibly impartial AI improvement software. It’s progressive decentralization, just like how Ethereum developed,” Yasavolian added.
The AI Alarm
One technique to improve the decentralization of Bittensor and to listen to extra voices of dissent is by way of subnet operators. These teams are spending money and time to spend money on the community, they usually, like Yasavolian, voice their opinions.
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And subnet progress has been sturdy. Because the begin of 2025, the variety of subnets has elevated 97%, from 65 to 128.
Sergey Khusnetdinov, Director of AI at Acquire Ventures, sees the subnet group as critically vital to Bittensor’s success.
“The result’s a meritocratic, self-improving ecosystem the place helpful intelligence doesn’t come from one lab or one company however emerges organically from a worldwide, permissionless group.”
Centralized AI corporations are valued fairly ridiculously as of late – OpenAI has a $500 billion valuation, Anthropic is at $350 billion. China-based Deepseek is rumored to have a $150 billion. With that in thoughts, what could be the worth of a strong AI community like Bittensor?
Miyachi, the BitMind CEO who runs a deepfake detection subnet, bullishly believes the Bittensor community might sometime excel over that of Bitcoin.
“Worth produced by the Bittensor ecosystem might surpass Bitcoin’s in the long term,” he informed BeInCrypto.
This might finally depend upon how individuals understand centralized AI techniques over time, or whether or not anybody is anxious. However Bitcoin’s had enormous runs as individuals reacted to financial instability and centralization failures corresponding to a worldwide pandemic, financial institution runs, and fiat forex debasement.
Possibly quickly, influencers may be saying, “lengthy Bittensor, brief centralized AI.” However who is aware of? Generally the longer term will be even stranger than AI might predict.