Dona
Crypto Trader, Bitcoin Macro Analysis & Charts
Customer-funded alpha buybacks could bring external TAO demand to Bittensor rather than just recycle emissions. If 100 subnets each earned $1M a year and used half for TAO-funded alpha buybacks, that would be $50M in annual external TAO buying. eTAO was a great addition; ideally, established subnets would set owner emissions to zero and redirect those rewards to miners, validators and stakers. The real milestone is consistent alpha buybacks and burns using customer revenue. x.com
Revenue-funded subnet burns could strengthen the case for Bittensor's TAO if more subnets follow Targon. Targon reports burning SN4 alpha worth 1,772 TAO (about $445,000) using organic revenue, plus another $1.7 million worth of SN4 alpha. Similar burns across all 128 subnets remain hypothetical. x.com
Bittensor's subnet economy could lift TAO via Alpha-token demand, but a major rally needs paying AI customers, not emission farming. About 64.2% of circulating TAO was staked as of Oct 7. At ~$3.24B, TAO is no cheap microcap. Still constructive long term, but stronger conviction needs verifiable revenue, demand above issuance, competitive AI products and institutional access. AI sentiment and crypto liquidity must also recover; Grayscale trust filings alone do not guarantee inflows. x.com
Bittensor's TAO suffers because the network lets subnets like SN95 extract millions in emissions without delivering. SN95 has made promises for over a year, shown no functional product or code, keeps pushing deadlines, barely communicates and raised money on the side. Its owner not selling, as @0xSunRun notes, doesn't change that: emission-inflated prices let others sell into the pool, and if the subnet is deregistered, the TAO is paid out and leaves the chain. x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com … Show more
Bittensor's long-term bid strengthens as top subnets turn real customer revenue into alpha buybacks and burns. SubConnect's first revenue index put 24 subnets at about $28-35M of annual recurring revenue from outside customers, 78-82% from compute and infrastructure. GPU marketplace Lium billed $1.3M last month, 2.96x a year earlier, with 1,310 of 1,602 GPUs rented, though emissions still run 2.1x billing; Targon and Chutes also fund buybacks from revenue. Subnet growth starts the bull run. … Show more
Bittensor's nearly two-and-a-half-year downtrend is very close to ending, needing a weekly close above 320 to confirm a higher high, after which 500 looks easy. Businesses owning subnets now do $25-30m in annualized revenue, estimated at about $100m by year-end, from real paying customers. TAO pumping last has not been a great signal before, but Bitcoin's higher high and clear bullish structure change likely make this time different. x.com x.com
Bittensor's new Gamma tokenomics are unattractive, making the protocol even more complicated and possibly useless. x.com
Bittensor's promise of decentralized AI is starting to show real revenue, which is the part that matters for TAO. Twenty-four Bittensor subnets are already making real revenue rather than just burning emissions, and that open funding for research came from crypto degens, not academia. x.com x.com x.com
Customer-funded demand can make decentralized AI compute tokens more valuable; usage alone can hide weak economics. Chutes reported revenue per million tokens up 37.7% and per GPU up 44.9% after cutting free and loss-making traffic, though its gains do not automatically lift TAO. Render's approved Salad roadmap could route payments and rewards through RENDER; integration and recurring customer-funded burns still need proof. Messari reported Akash leases up 27.1% despite revenue falling 45%. … Show more
Bittensor's arbitrary reward functions make its design far more complex than Pearl's MatMul focus, and that complexity works against TAO. Bittensor might still work if it got the design right; if not, repeated revisions may never reach a working end state. Pearl could get there faster and, if correct, get much bigger, though it too may fail. If, as Sebtensor says, TAO is an AI economy rather than AI money, Ethereum's struggle to accrue value to ETH is a further bearish warning. x.com x.com x.com
GPU DePIN's inference opportunity is far more interesting, but its moat now depends on reliable routing and repeat paying customers rather than incentivized GPU supply. Render Network logged $539K in paid jobs and $512K in RENDER burns over 30 days, though not all jobs were inference and emissions continue. Bittensor subnet rewards do not prove customer demand either. Real utilization, retention, healthy margins and revenue without emissions will show who can sustain the business. x.com x.com … Show more