Bittensor (TAO)|Our view|Examples, not recommendations
Sovereign AI Economy
Real customers, real revenue|Stillcore estimates
A subnet replaces the product department
01 Define
The product
The operator defines what it wants as a set of incentive mechanisms.
02 Produce
The miners
Miners compete to make it, validators score it, and the chain pays the best work.
03 Sell
The operator
The operator’s job is to sell what the miners make.
04 Buy back
The token
Part of the revenue buys the subnet’s own token off the open market. Sell enough to offset every token emitted to miners and the subnet is subnet-profitable.
Subnet revenue run-rate (ARR), Stillcore estimates
The valuation gap, dated, not a forecast
How we invest
Selection, not passive exposure
Selection
High-conviction subnets
Active positions across infrastructure and applications, sized and rebalanced as the network changes.
Access
OTC deals with founders
Private, over-the-counter deals sourced through relationships across the ecosystem.
Liquidity
On-chain execution
On-chain liquidity kept for active management, with TAO as the reserve asset underneath.
Common questions
Subnets, explained
What is a Bittensor subnet?
A subnet is a market for one kind of AI work. The subnet owner defines the task and how it is scored, miners compete to do it, validators score the results with Yuma Consensus, and the chain pays the best work in new TAO and the subnet's own token.
What is an alpha token?
Each subnet has its own token, called an alpha token, that coordinates economic participation within the subnet. It trades against TAO in the subnet's on-chain pool, and miners earn it for their work, which gives them an ownership stake in the subnet they mine.
How do subnets make money?
A subnet sells the product its miners produce and uses part of the revenue to buy its own token on the open market, then burns it or holds it. A subnet that sells enough to offset all the tokens emitted to its miners is what we call subnet-profitable. As of July 2026, Bitcast (SN93) and Synth (SN50) reported having reached it.
What happens if a company running a subnet is acquired?
The acquirer has every reason to keep it running. A well-built subnet produces the product at no cost to the operator, and it keeps improving, so it works as the product department of the company that was just acquired.
How many subnets are there?
There were 128 subnets as of September 2026, with 256 slots on the roadmap. By our estimate, compute and inference subnets were bringing in about $50mm a year and applied subnets about $15mm.
How does Stillcore choose subnets?
We focus on subnets that can sell a product and produce real revenue, back them actively rather than passively, and source many positions over the counter, directly from founders. About the fund.