Bitcoin is now, paradoxically compared to its original ethos, transitioning to be accepted by Wall Street. Bittensor is a new challenge to centralized power. The story is red-hot. With the rise of artificial intelligence, concerns have been raised about the concentration and centralization of technology.
Bittensor and its cryptocurrency TAO aim to decentralize artificial intelligence services. Although TAO has lost nearly 53% of its value in 2025, some believe Bittensor could be the next generation Bitcoin in the AI era. But how realistic is this optimism, really?
Bittensor's foundation and promise
The network just underwent a reward halving on December 15, which reduced the number of coins issued. However, many have heard such stories before.
Numerous cryptocurrencies have claimed to be “the next Bitcoin,” because talking about it can earn money.
Bittensor may have real value in the long run. However, it faces obstacles, like all ambitious crypto projects. The story of Bittensor is reminiscent of Bitcoin's beginnings: Facing powerful established players, a new network can challenge and even disrupt the system.
For years, influencers repeated a similar phrase “long Bitcoin, short the banks.” Although today Bitcoin is part of Wall Street banks and publicly traded companies, the story was effective at the time.
The starting point is that OpenAI, Anthropic, and Deepseek have grown too large and intimidating, and people should be concerned about their power.
Bittensor aims to decentralize AI workloads and replaces proof-of-work puzzles with actual utilization of AI. This is the core idea of Bittensor.
“Bitcoin showed that cryptographic incentives can drive a global hardware network to secure the ledger,” said Evan Malanga, CEO of Yuma and one of Bittensor's biggest supporters, to BeInCrypto. “Bittensor takes that same mechanism and directs computational power directly to useful applications: Training and running AI models, applications, and infrastructure.”
Another Bitcoin? Really?
It is important to note that Yuma is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG). DCG was an early player in many cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Zcash, and Decentraland.
The company was also an early investor in Coinbase, Circle, and Chainalysis. DCG's CEO Barry Silbert clearly supports Bittensor, which some may see as a positive sign.
Bittensor shares some of the same features as Bitcoin. The amount of TAO is capped at twenty-one million, a clear reference to BTC. Bittensor also undergoes halvings; in December, rewards dropped from 7,200 TAO to 3,600 TAO per day.
Unlike Bitcoin's energy-efficient proof-of-work puzzles, Bittensor uses a proof-of-intelligence method where nodes perform AI tasks to prove their capabilities. The better a node performs its tasks, the greater the chance of receiving rewards in TAO.
Nodes accepted into the Bittensor network are assigned a subnet, of which there are currently 128. These subnets have their own special areas related to AI.
“Each subnet is somewhat like its own specialized marketplace for a particular AI service – some focus on image generation, others on language models,” says Arrash Yasavolian, founder of Taoshin, whose managed subnet focuses on economic intelligence.
Centralization vs decentralization
Concerns about AI often arise from situations where a few companies hold concentrated power. Concentration in any industry usually means higher prices and poorer services for customers – sometimes both at the same time.
Bittensor aims to make AI a global public good through decentralization, enabling independent node operators to manage AI capabilities in subnets.
“AI is revolutionizing every industry,” says Ken Jon Miyachi, CEO of BitMind, whose managed subnet in Bittensor focuses on deepfake detection. “Bitcoin revolutionized value storage, but Bittensor will revolutionize entire economic systems by making intelligence a global commodity.”
How decentralized is this network really? On July 10, 2024, the Bittensor network was halted after an $8 million hack that drained several wallets. The chain was moved to “safety mode,” where blocks were indeed produced, but without transaction possibilities.
“Today there are legitimate concerns about focus,” noted Taoshin Yasavolian. “The OpenTensor Foundation is the only entity responsible for block validation. The ten largest subnet validators represent about 67% of the entire network's staking power.”
Some may argue that Bittensor's security risks and ability to stop the network are at odds with decentralization. However, proponents of the network say that full decentralization will come later, when it becomes “credibly neutral” in the same way that Bitcoin is believed to be a store of value.
“Bittensor's long-term strategic goal is to be a credible neutral tool for AI development. It is a gradual decentralization, as was once seen with Ethereum,” Yasavolian added.
AI alert
One way to increase Bittensor's decentralization and get more critical voices heard is through subnet operators. These groups invest time and money into the network and, like Yasavolian, also bring forth their views.
The growth of subnets has been strong. After the beginning of 2025, the number of subnets has increased by 97 percent, from 65 to 128.
Sergey Khusnetdinov, AI director at Gain Ventures, considers the subnet community essential for Bittensor's success.
“The outcome is a meritocratic, self-improving ecosystem where useful intelligence does not come from a single laboratory or company, but organically arises from a global, permissionless community.”
Centralized AI companies are currently given incredibly high valuations – OpenAI's value is $500 billion, Anthropics $350 billion. The Chinese Deepseek is rumored to be valued at $150 billion. In this light, what could be the value of a robust AI network like Bittensor?
Miyachi, CEO of BitMind, who maintains the deepfake detection subnet, strongly believes that the Bittensor network could one day surpass even Bitcoin.
“The value generated by the Bittensor ecosystem could, in the long run, surpass Bitcoin,” he told BeInCrypto.
Ultimately, everything may depend on how people continue to view centralized AI systems – or whether anyone cares. Bitcoin has experienced major price rallies as people have reacted to economic instability and failures of centralization – such as the global pandemic, banking crises, and the weakening of fiat currencies.
Soon we may hear influencers say: “long Bittensor, short centralized AI.” But who knows? Sometimes the future can be stranger than AI could imagine.
