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BITTENSOR'S GOT THE BIGGEST NAMES IN TECH TALKING. BUT WHO’S PAYING? 💸

ICYMI: Bittensor is a decentralized AI network with its own token (TAO) - and it is having a MOMENT right now.

While most tokens/projects are suffering a narrative drought… 

It feels like everyone in the tech/crypto space is talking about Bittensor.

E.g. Jason Calacanis from the All-In Podcast helped to push TAO’s price up ~10% (bottom to top) in the span of ~8hrs last night, after he tweeted "$tao > $btc":

So what's got everyone so excited?

Of late, the main focus has been “Covenant-72B”, a 72-billion parameter AI model that was trained on Bittensor’s decentralized network.

No data center. No billion-dollar GPU cluster. 

Just 70+ independent contributors training it across regular internet infrastructure.

Chamath recently pitched it as "a pretty crazy technical accomplishment" to Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang, on the All-In Podcast - and got this response:

Now, it’s worth flagging: 

The All-In crew isn't just cheerleading from the sidelines here. They've got chips on the table.

Chamath has publicly discussed investing in Bittensor… 

Jason went further, launching Stillcore Capital last year, a fund exclusively focused on TAO and Bittensor subnet tokens (subnets are specialized mini-networks within Bittensor that handle different AI tasks). The fund's stated goal? Own 1% of the circulating supply…

And their co-host David Sacks, is the current White House Crypto & AI Czar.

Point is: they have clear financial incentives to talk TAO up. 

And so far? It’s working.

… but, when something moves fast enough in one direction, not everyone is going to agree on what’s driving it.

Pine Analytics just published a deep dive on Bittensor, and the findings paint a very different picture.

BITTENSOR'S GOT THE BIGGEST NAMES IN TECH TALKING. BUT WHO’S PAYING? (P2) 💸

The question Pine Analytics asked: 

Can the network generate enough real revenue to justify its $2.6B (now $2.9B) market cap?

Their answer? Not yet. And maybe not for a while.

Right now, the total identifiable revenue across the entire Bittensor network is roughly $3M to $15M per year.

The biggest subnet, Chutes (which sells AI computing power, kind of like a decentralized version of Amazon Web Services), looks great on paper. 

400,000+ users, 5M+ daily requests. Impressive stuff!

But those cheap prices aren't from efficiency. They're from subsidies.

Chutes receives roughly $142,000/day in TAO emissions (that's ~$52M annualized). Estimated actual customer revenue? Around $1.3M to $2.4M per year.

Translation: for every $1 customers pay, the network kicks in $22 to $40 in token rewards to keep things running.

"But this is the Uber playbook! Subsidize now → raise prices later!"

Pine thought of that too. Uber built a strong foundation of ‘switching friction’ during its subsidy phase (driver networks, proprietary platforms, enterprise integrations, etc.). 

Bittensor's models are open source. The APIs are standard. Users can bounce to any provider with zero friction.

Pine is essentially asking: when subsidies shrink, what is there to keep anyone around?

And on top of that…

Against a $2.6B market cap, Pine estimates TAO’s revenue multiple sits somewhere between 175x and 200x.

So what is TAO actually priced on?

A TAO position built on narrative and scarcity? That might do great regardless.

A TAO position built on Bittensor becoming a real AI services business? From what Pine Analytics found, the evidence for that may still be lacking.

The takeaway:

If you’re seeing the headlines about TAO and considering taking a position - understand the bet you're making.

(Narrative and scarcity seem to be in the driver’s seat right now.)

But hey - if it works, it works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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