Bitcoin is now, almost paradoxically to its original ethos, being adopted by Wall Street. Bittensor is a new finger to “the man” of centralization. It’s a sizzling hot narrative. With the rise of AI, concerns have arisen about the tech’s concentration and centralization. 

Bittensor, and its cryptocurrency, TAO ($227.51), aims to decentralize AI services.  Despite losing nearly 53% in 2025, some believe Bittensor is a next-generation Bitcoin for the AI age. But how realistic is this optimism?

The Premise and Promise of Bittensor

The network just completed a reward halving on December 15, reducing its supply of minted coins. The problem is, many have heard this narrative before. 

Plenty of cryptocurrencies have claimed to be “the next Bitcoin” – because there’s money to be made with that story. 

However, there could be some real value for Bittensor over the long run – though it has hurdles to overcome, as any sort of ambitious crypto project like this would.

The tale of Bittensor is not unlike Bitcoin: There are powerful incumbents, and a new network can take on and even upend this world order.

For years, influencers rehashed an often similar, anthemic phrase of “long Bitcoin, short the banks”. Notwithstanding that now Bitcoin is embedded in Wall Street banks and publicly traded DAT stocks, this narrative worked well. 

Bittensor’s price history since exchange listing in 2023. Source: CoinGecko

A premise is that AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Deepseek have become too big and frightening, and people need to be concerned about their rise.

Decentralizing artificial intelligence workloads and replacing proof-of-work puzzles with actual real-use AI is Bittensor’s basic gist. 

“Bitcoin proved that cryptographic incentives could coordinate a global network of hardware to secure a ledger,” Evan Malanga, an executive at Yuma, one of the largest backers of the Bittensor platform, told BeInCrypto. “Bittensor takes that same mechanism and redirects the compute power toward something that has direct benefits in today’s world: Training and running AI models, applications, and infrastructure.”

Another Bitcoin? Really?

It’s important to note that Yuma is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG), whose firm was one of the earliest backers of various cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Zcash, and Decentraland. 

It was also an early investor in Coinbase, Circle, and Chainalysis. DCG’s CEO, Barry Silbert, is clearly on board with Bittensor – which for some could be considered a positive signal. 

Barry Silbert, who started crypto investing in 2012, is on board the TAO train. Source: X

Bittensor does have some Bitcoin-like characteristics. There are only 21 million units of TAO, clearly a nod to BTC ($86,826.00). Bittensor also has halvings, which in December reduced its rewards from 7,200 TAO to 3,600 per day. 

Instead of the energy-intensive proof-of-work riddles Bitcoin uses, Bittensor uses something called proof-of-intelligence, where nodes must perform tasks to prove their capability in handling AI workloads. The better a node’s task output quality, the higher the chance it can receive rewards in TAO. 

Nodes that are allowed on the Bittensor network are then assigned a subnet, of which there are currently 128. These subnets have different AI-related specialties. 

“Each subnet is like a specialized marketplace for a specific type of AI service – some focus on image generation, others on language models,” said Arrash Yasavolian, the cofounder of Taoshi, which runs a financial intelligence subnet. 

Centralization Versus Decentralization

Concerns about AI often center on a few companies having concentrated power. Concentration in any industry typically means higher prices and poorer services for customers – sometimes both at the same time. 

Bittensor aims to make AI more of a global good with its decentralization characteristics, like having independent node operators power the subnets for its artificial intelligence capabilities. 

“AI is redefining every industry,” said Ken Jon Miyachi, CEO of BitMind, which runs a subnet focused on deepfake detections on Bittensor. ”Bitcoin revolutionized the store of value, but Bittensor is revolutionizing entire economic systems by making intelligence a global commodity.”

But how decentralized is this network? On July 10, 2024, the Bittensor network was halted amidst an $8 million hack that drained wallets. The chain was put into a “safe mode” that produced blocks without any transaction capabilities. 

“There are legitimate centralization concerns today,” noted Taoshi’s Yasavolian. “The OpenTensor foundation is the sole party responsible for validating blocks. The top 10 largest subnet validators comprise about 67% of total network stake weight.”

Some might argue that Bittensor’s security risks and ability to shut down the network are antithetical to decentralization. Proponents of the network say that full decentralization will come later, becoming “credibly neutral” the same way Bitcoin is supposed to be for store-of-value purposes. 

“Bittensor’s long-term strategic goal is to become a credibly neutral AI development tool. It’s progressive decentralization, similar to how Ethereum evolved,” Yasavolian added. 

The AI Alarm

One way to increase the decentralization of Bittensor and to hear more voices of dissent is via subnet operators. These groups are spending time and money to invest in the network, and they, like Yasavolian, voice their opinions. 

And subnet growth has been strong. Since the start of 2025, the number of subnets has increased 97%, from 65 to 128. 

Sergey Khusnetdinov, Director of AI at Gain Ventures, sees the subnet community as critically important to Bittensor’s success. 

“The result is a meritocratic, self-improving ecosystem where useful intelligence doesn’t come from one lab or one corporation but emerges organically from a worldwide, permissionless community.”

Chart of Bittensor subnet growth since March 2023. Source: Taostats

Centralized AI companies are valued quite ridiculously these days – OpenAI has a $500 billion valuation, Anthropic is at $350 billion. China-based Deepseek is rumored to have a $150 billion. With that in mind, what would be the value of a powerful AI network like Bittensor? 

Miyachi, the BitMind CEO who runs a deepfake detection subnet, bullishly believes the Bittensor network could someday excel over that of Bitcoin. 

“Value produced by the Bittensor ecosystem could surpass Bitcoin’s in the long run,” he told BeInCrypto. 

This could ultimately depend on how people perceive centralized AI systems over time, or whether anyone is concerned. But Bitcoin’s had huge runs as people reacted to economic instability and centralization failures such as a global pandemic, bank runs, and fiat currency debasement.  

Maybe soon, influencers might be saying, “long Bittensor, short centralized AI.” But who knows? Sometimes the future can be even stranger than AI could predict. 

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