What is Bittensor (TAO)?

Bittensor is a decentralised network that uses its own cryptocurrency (called TAO) to incentivise the sharing of compute power, AI models and insights needed to help in the training and development of machine learning models. The thinking is that by incentivising collaboration, you democratise AI development and enable a bottom-up approach where everyone can benefit from the technology.

Who created Bittensor?

Bittensor was created by Jacob Steeves, a former Google AI engineer. The project officially launched in 2021 with the vision of building a decentralised, open-source intelligence network – where anyone can contribute to and benefit from AI development, rather than it being controlled by a few big tech companies.

How does Bittensor work?

At the heart of Bittensor is a unique consensus mechanism called Proof of Intelligence (PoI). Instead of securing the network through energy-intensive mining, Bittensor rewards participants for contributing useful machine learning models. Anyone can connect an AI model to the network, where it’s continuously evaluated by other models based on the quality and usefulness of its responses. The more valuable the output, the more TAO tokens the model earns. This creates a self-sustaining system where only the most helpful and high-performing models are rewarded, driving constant improvement across the network. In short, it turns AI development into an open, incentivised marketplace for intelligence.

What makes Bittensor different?

While traditional AI is trained and controlled by centralised organisations, Bittensor flips the model. It creates a peer-to-peer network of AI models that all compete and collaborate with each other. The better your AI performs, the more rewards you can earn in TAO.

What is TAO used for?

TAO is the native token of the Bittensor network. It’s used to:

• Reward contributors who train and improve AI models
• Vote on governance decisions, like updates to the protocol
• Pay for access to AI outputs on the network

Security incidents

Supply chain attack (May–July 2024)

Malicious code was injected into the official Bittensor version 6.12.2 release, which went live between 22-29 May 2024. Users who installed it unknowingly exposed their private key data to an attacker. In July 2024, the attacker began draining affected wallets, stealing approximately $8 million. Source: Halborn

The above may not be an exhaustive list of incidents. As always, it's important that you do your own research to ensure you're comfortable with an asset's associated risks before investing in it.

Token supply and concentration

Bittensor has a maximum supply of 21 million TAO, with 53% in circulation as of August 2026. The top 10 wallet addresses collectively hold ~2.3 million TAO (~11% of the maximum token supply).

Visit taostats.io to see the distribution among TAO’s top token holders.