The most interesting thing about this $TAO upgrade isn’t the code—it’s that each subnet’s “commitment” is now laid bare on-chain.

On October 19, Bittensor’s eTAO (runtime v481) went live on mainnet. Previously, alpha emissions for all subnets were split according to a fixed formula: 18% to the Owner, 41% to validators, and 41% to miners. According to the official documentation, this formula had been in use for five years.

Now subnet Owners can adjust the split themselves, but within limits: Owners get 0–33% (subnets created through leasing must allocate at least 18% to the Owner), validators can get up to 50%, and miners must get at least 33%. Changes can be made only once every 50,400 blocks (about a week). The official team emphasized that those who stake $TAO on Root receive their baseline share first, and Owners cannot affect that portion no matter how they adjust the split.

The disagreements emerged within the first few hours after launch:

· SN41 Almanac: Owner 18%→10%, miners 41%→50%; the team says miners are the “lifeblood”

· SN122 CookingTAO: Owner unchanged, miners raised to 64%, validators lowered to 18%

· SN103 Consted, SN70 Consted 2.0, SN35 Logic, SN36 Epago: Owner share raised straight to the maximum of 33%

According to the deregistration rankings from Taostats cited by The TAO Daily, three of these subnetworks that maxed out Owner share at 33% are currently among the top five candidates for deregistration. Taking your full share before you get kicked out—the motive isn’t hard to guess, but it’s still just a guess.

My take: eTAO gives every subnet a public measure of its commitment. People holding subnet alpha have one more thing to do: check the revenue split first, then the rankings.

A snapshot from the community account Bittensor Daily shows that, as of 10/20, only 7 of the 128 subnets had changed their revenue splits; most are still waiting to see what happens.

Not investment advice.

#Bittensor #TAO #AI #DeAI