BullTensor
TAO $277.90

What is Bittensor (TAO)?

Picture a never-ending artificial intelligence contest, open to everyone. Thousands of participants run AI, the network scores their work non-stop, and the best get paid in TAO, Bittensor's crypto. Nobody owns the service: the whole network provides it.

TAO price
$277.90
Services (subnets)
128
TAO in circulation
τ11.6M
New TAO per day
τ3,600.00

Bittensor in 3 steps

  1. 01
    One AI need = one subnet

    Answering questions, creating images, renting graphics cards… each service has its own subnet.

  2. 02
    Participants compete

    Anyone can offer their work. The network scores it non-stop and keeps the best.

  3. 03
    The best get paid

    They receive the subnet's token. These tokens trade freely: you can bet on the AI services that will win.

A simple comparison

₿ Bitcoin

Pays computers to keep a big ledger of payments up to date.

τ Bittensor

Pays computers to produce artificial intelligence: answering like ChatGPT, creating images like Midjourney, renting graphics cards like Amazon Web Services… Each service is a subnet (a "sub-network") with its own contest.

Who does what?

Hover a role (or tap it) to see what it does, and where it sits in the diagram. They do the job: run an AI model, provide computing power, produce forecasts or data. They test miners non-stop and give them a score. The better a miner, the more it earns. They create a subnet and set its rules: what work to do and how to score it. They put their TAO behind a validator or a subnet they believe in, and earn a share of the rewards.

TAO and the subnet tokens

TAO is the currency of the whole network. On top of that, each subnet has its own token (called "alpha"), bought with TAO.

It's a bit as if every AI service had its own stock: if many people believe in a subnet and buy its token, the price goes up, and the network sends it more rewards. The market decides which AI services deserve funding.

The largest subnets right now
  1. 1 lium.io SN51 · Compute $133M
  2. 2 Chutes SN64 · Inference $67.1M
  3. 3 engy SN53 · Inference $55.4M
  4. 4 Targon SN4 · Compute $55.2M
  5. 5 SayGM SN28 · Inference $42.2M
All subnets →

What is it actually used for?

Subnets cover almost everything AI does today:

Decentralized AI Inference

13 subnets

When you ask an AI a question, a computer somewhere has to run the model to answer. These subnets do that job, like ChatGPT's API, but on thousands of independent computers.

Like: OpenAI API, Together AI, Groq

Chutes engy SayGM Actual

Decentralized GPU Compute

8 subnets

Renting computing power (graphics cards) by the hour to run or train AI, like on Amazon Web Services, but from an open network of providers.

Like: Amazon Web Services, CoreWeave, RunPod

lium.io Targon Quantum Compute Compute Horde

Decentralized AI Training

14 subnets

Building and improving AI models. Instead of a single lab, people all over the world compete to produce the best model.

Like: OpenAI, Mistral AI, Hugging Face

Affine iota Teutonic Gradients

Decentralized Data & Search

7 subnets

Collecting, cleaning and searching the information AI needs: web pages, social networks, labelled examples.

Like: Scale AI, Bright Data, Perplexity

Claims Desearch Data Universe Tag101

Decentralized AI Agents & Coding

10 subnets

AIs that don't just answer but act: write code, do research, complete a task from start to finish, like an autonomous assistant.

Like: Claude Code, Devin, Cursor

SOMA ORO Ridges Leadpoet

Decentralized Finance & Prediction AI

16 subnets

Predicting the future: crypto prices, event outcomes, trading signals. The best forecasters get rewarded.

Like: Bloomberg Terminal, Kalshi, Numerai

Vanta Almanac AdTAO Liquidity

Decentralized AI Security & Safety

9 subnets

Spotting what is fake or dangerous: deepfakes, AI-written text, security holes in code.

Like: Reality Defender, GPTZero, HackerOne

RedTeam BitMind Yanez Trishool

Decentralized AI for Science & Health

8 subnets

AI for research: finding new medicines, reading DNA, forecasting the weather, solving maths.

Like: AlphaFold (Google DeepMind), Recursion, Insilico Medicine

NOVA Minos CliqueAI Zeus

Decentralized Generative Media & Vision

10 subnets

Creating and understanding images, videos and 3D objects with AI, like Midjourney does.

Like: Midjourney, Runway, Adobe Firefly

Score Bitcast 404—GEN Vidaio

Decentralized Storage & Network Infrastructure

5 subnets

The pipes of the internet: storing files, moving data around, private connections.

Like: Dropbox, Cloudflare, NordVPN

Hippius UR blockmachine Beam

Decentralized Robotics & Physical AI

5 subnets

Teaching robots and cars to understand and move around in the real world.

Like: Waymo, Figure, NVIDIA Isaac

OpenRoboto Nepher Robotics Attune StreetVision by NATIX

How much TAO is there?

Like Bitcoin, there will never be more than 21 million TAO. About 11,612,130 TAO already exist.

Every so often, the amount of new TAO created each day is cut in half: that's the halving. The first one happened on December 14, 2025. The next one will happen once 15,750,000 TAO have been created, probably around December 2029 at the current pace.

Everything about the Bittensor halving →

How to take part

  1. 01
    Buy and stake

    Buy TAO, then put it behind a validator or into the subnets you believe in.

    Staking guide →Pick a wallet →
  2. 02
    Use the services

    Many subnets already sell what they produce: Chutes and engy give access to AI models like ChatGPT's API, often cheaper, and lium.io rents out graphics cards by the hour.

    See Chutes →See engy →See lium.io →
  3. 03
    Mine

    Run your own machines on a subnet that fits your hardware.

    Mining guide →

Words to know

TAO
Bittensor's crypto. It pays participants and buys subnet tokens.
Subnet
An AI service inside Bittensor (a chatbot, compute, forecasts…), with its own contest.
Alpha
Each subnet's own token, traded against TAO.
Miner
Whoever does a subnet's work and gets paid for its quality.
Validator
Whoever scores the miners' work.
Staking
Putting your TAO behind a validator or a subnet to earn a share of the rewards.
Halving
When the creation of new TAO is cut in half.
Market cap
A token's total value: its price × the number of tokens in circulation.

Bittensor FAQ

What is Bittensor?
Bittensor is an open network where thousands of participants run AI. The network scores their work non-stop and pays the best in TAO, its cryptocurrency. Each AI service (chatbot, images, compute…) is a subnet with its own contest.
What is the TAO crypto?
TAO is Bittensor's cryptocurrency. There will never be more than 21 million, like Bitcoin. It pays participants, is used for staking and buys subnet tokens.
What is a Bittensor subnet?
A subnet is an AI service inside Bittensor, run as a contest: miners do the work, validators score it and the owner sets the rules. Each subnet has its own token (alpha).
How many Bittensor subnets are there?
Bittensor currently has 128 active subnets. The full list, with live prices and data, is on our subnets page.
What is Dynamic TAO (dTAO)?
Dynamic TAO gives each subnet its own token (alpha), bought with TAO. The more the market values a subnet, the higher its token and the more rewards the network sends it.
When is the next Bittensor halving?
The next halving happens once 15,750,000 TAO have been created: the daily creation of TAO will then be cut in half. At the current pace, that would be around December 2029.
Going further: the technical details

Bittensor runs its own blockchain, Subtensor, built with Substrate. A block is produced every ~12 seconds.

Validators set weights on miners; Yuma Consensus combines them by each validator's stake to set the rewards. They are paid out every tempo (360 blocks, about 72 minutes) and split 41% to miners, 41% to validators and their stakers, 18% to the owner.

Since Dynamic TAO (dTAO), each subnet has an on-chain TAO/alpha liquidity pool: staking into a subnet means buying its alpha from that pool. Each subnet's share of emissions depends on the average price of its alpha.

The first halving (December 14, 2025) cut emissions from 1 to 0.5 TAO per block. Halvings are triggered by total issuance, not by a date; recycled TAO (e.g. registration fees) is removed from issuance, which pushes the halving back (next step: 0.25 TAO per block).