Bitcoin is now, almost paradoxically to the original idea, being taken over by Wall Street. Bittensor is a new finger pointed at 'the system' of centralization. This is a very current story. With the rise of AI, there are increasing concerns about the concentration and centralization of this technology.
Bittensor and the cryptocurrency TAO want to decentralize AI services. Despite the price losing nearly 53% in 2025, some believe that Bittensor could become the Bitcoin of the AI era. But how realistic is this optimism?
The foundation and promise of Bittensor
The network completed a reward halving on December 15, reducing the number of coins issued. However, many people have heard this kind of story many times before.
Various cryptocurrencies have called themselves “the next Bitcoin” – because that’s where money can be made.
However, there could be real value for Bittensor in the long term – although, like any ambitious crypto project, it will have to overcome obstacles. The story of Bittensor resembles that of Bitcoin: There are powerful parties, but a new network can challenge and even change this world order.
For years, influencers repeated a recurring slogan: “long Bitcoin, short the banks”. Despite Bitcoin now being part of Wall Street banks and publicly traded DAT shares, this message worked well.
The idea is that AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Deepseek are becoming too big and too powerful, and that people should be concerned about their growth.
Decentralizing artificial intelligence tasks and replacing proof-of-work puzzles with real AI applications is the core of Bittensor.
“Bitcoin has proven that cryptographic incentives can get a global network of hardware to work together to secure a ledger,” said Evan Malanga, director at Yuma – one of the largest investors in the Bittensor platform – to BeInCrypto. “Bittensor uses the same mechanism and applies that computing power to something that has direct benefits: Training and running AI models, applications, and infrastructure.”
Another Bitcoin? Really?
It is good to know that Yuma is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG). This company invested early in various cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Zcash, and Decentraland.
DCG was also an early investor in Coinbase, Circle, and Chainalysis. The CEO of DCG, Barry Silbert, clearly supports Bittensor – a positive signal for some.
Bittensor has some similarities with Bitcoin. There are only 21 million TAO tokens, clearly a reference to BTC. Bittensor also has halvings: In December, the rewards dropped from 7,200 TAO to 3,600 TAO per day.
Instead of energy-consuming proof-of-work puzzles, Bittensor uses “proof-of-intelligence”. Here, nodes must perform tasks to show that they can process AI tasks. The better a node performs, the more chances it has to earn TAO rewards.
Nodes that gain access to the Bittensor network are assigned to a subnet – there are currently 128 subnets. Each subnet has its own AI specialization.
“Each subnet is like a specialized marketplace for a specific type of AI service – some focus on image generation, others on language models,” said Arrash Yasavolian, co-founder of Taoshi. This company runs a financial intelligence subnet.
Centralization versus decentralization
Concerns around AI often revolve around the power held by a few large companies. Concentration in an industry usually leads to higher prices and poorer service for customers – and sometimes both happen simultaneously.
Bittensor aims to make AI a global good through its decentralized structure. Independent node operators manage the subnets for the network's AI functions.
“AI is changing every industry,” said Ken Jon Miyachi, CEO of BitMind, which manages a subnet for deepfake detection on Bittensor. “Bitcoin sparked the revolution in store of value, but Bittensor is changing entire economic systems by making intelligence tradable worldwide.”
But how decentralized is this network? On July 10, 2024, the Bittensor network was shut down after an $8 million hack that drained wallets. The chain was put into “safe mode”. This allowed blocks to be produced, but without transactions.
“Right now, there are serious concerns about centralization,” said Yasavolian from Taoshi. “The OpenTensor foundation is currently the only party validating blocks. The ten largest subnet validators together hold about 67% of the total stake weight of the network.”
Some say that the security risks of Bittensor and the ability to shut down the network are the opposite of decentralization. Advocates of the network say that full decentralization will come later, and then it will become “credibly neutral”, just like Bitcoin is supposed to be as a store of value.
“The long-term goal of Bittensor is to become a credibly neutral AI development platform. Decentralization is gradual – just like with Ethereum,” Yasavolian added.
The AI alarm
One way to strengthen the decentralization of Bittensor and hear more other opinions is through subnet operators. These groups invest time and money into the network. Like Yasavolian, they also voice their opinions.
The growth of subnets is also strong. Since the beginning of 2025, the number of subnets has increased by 97%, from 65 to 128.
Sergey Khusnetdinov, AI director at Gain Ventures, considers the subnet community of great importance for Bittensor's success.
“The result is a meritocratic, self-improving ecosystem, where useful intelligence does not come from one laboratory or one company, but naturally arises from a global community where everyone is allowed to participate.”
Centralized AI companies are now extremely highly valued. OpenAI has a valuation of $500 billion, Anthropic $350 billion. Deepseek from China would be worth about $150 billion. How much could a powerful AI network like Bittensor be worth?
Miyachi, the BitMind CEO who runs a subnet for deepfake detection, is very positive about Bittensor. He believes the network could even perform better than Bitcoin one day.
“The value that the Bittensor ecosystem delivers could surpass that of Bitcoin in the long term,” he told BeInCrypto.
How people view centralized AI systems, or whether they are concerned about them, will likely determine if that happens. Bitcoin saw enormous increases as people reacted to economic uncertainty and centralization issues such as a pandemic, bank runs, and devaluation of fiat currency.
Perhaps influencers will soon say: “long Bittensor, short centralized AI.” But who knows? Sometimes the future is crazier than AI itself can predict.
