Revenue Search: Inside Bittensor

The hosts open with travel/gossip (Mark dialing in from Dubai) and a firm PSA about why they won’t confirm wallet/subnet rumours, They then bring on Yoav, Garrett and Gyles from Tensor Group to debut tao.com, a rebuilt Bittensor wallet (iOS live now; Android targeted for Q1) that makes onboarding dead simple: fiat/TAO toggles, in-app TAO purchase via Coinbase Pay (debit or Coinbase), one-tap staking (abstracts “root/validators”), biometric Secure Enclave keys, clean portfolio/history, and rich subnet pages (stats, team, roadmap, news, search/sort) designed to drive conviction; UK rollout awaits FCA tweaks while US users can update today, CSV export/desktop and Ledger-style “power user” features are planned, and subnet teams will be able to self-manage profiles and potentially promote content; the group discusses growth levers (recommendations, short founder videos, category labels, “did-you-know” hooks), a playful idea of tiny “starter alpha,” and a serious unmet need for institutional/custodial support so PLCs can hold alpha, with Tensor saying they’re self-funded (validator/mining), now raising to scale the broader tao.com/Tensor stack.

Mark and Siam open with a candid TAO update (over-levered loans due, price drawdown, macro notes on TGA and QT) then bring on Akshat from Dippy, who explains Dippy as an AI-friend entertainment app (~8.6M users, ~1 hr/day engagement) adding tap-to-video (not real-time yet) and imminently voice calls; Dippy now runs all text inference on Bittensor SN-4 (Targon) via a six-figure deal and is pivoting SN-11 into a fast, cheap media-inference “studio” (deterministic TensorRT pipeline), currently serving ~2% of Dippy images with plans to ramp to 100% and open a self-serve API; they’ll resume consistent SN-11 alpha buybacks by redirecting $5–10k/month formerly spent on centralized providers, outline 18+ moderation/privacy measures, note revenue of ~$40–60k/month while prioritizing retention and future in-message ads, and share a longer-term vision for interactive “generative worlds,” plus team hiring and platform constraints (Android feasible “Jarvis,” iOS restricted).

Mark and Siam join Max (Score / Subnet 44) for an update on Score’s shift from “just sports” to a broad computer-vision platform: they’ve built a new incentive mechanism that uses VLMs to generate pseudo-ground-truth and run twin tracks—an open, verifiable Hugging Face competition and a private client track—driving rapid gains toward a football “gold line” benchmark. Score’s first featured client, cricket strategist Nathan Leamon (Cards), explains how Score will replicate/extend Hawkeye-style ball-tracking from standard broadcast footage and power decisions from scouting/auctions through in-game tactics. Max outlines real-world uses beyond sport (petrol forecourts, retail, fruit grading, car washes), a 60-day trial motion to win enterprise data and contracts, and the upcoming “vision GPT” product where an agent reads video, recommends/dispatches models as subnet tasks, and ties revenue to ALPHA via a burn-and-mint “scoronomics” loop. The team notes a fresh DSV/Astrid-127 OTC with Score, and—crucially—Score’s first recurring five-figure invoice, underscoring real revenue traction.

A lively Revenue Search with guest Greg “Rizzo” unveiling two big threads: first, Subnet 45’s partnership with Talisman to turn its crypto wallet into an AI-augmented “smart” wallet—miners pull sentiment/relevance signals (e.g., via Subnet 64 and Data Universe), users set voice/dictation trading triggers (DCA, limit/TP/SL, on-chain events), with security handled via smart contracts and ledger/iOS support; revenue flows from tool usage and a share of Talisman trading fees earmarked for buy-and-burn. Second, Rizzo + DNA are forming a community-driven, NASDAQ-listed Digital Asset Treasury (target size ~$300M): subnet owners can contribute ALPHA for locked 3–5 year treasury holdings and receive equity, easing sell-pressure; an “Avengers” advisory group of OGs will guide treasury deployment while validator ops and Subnets 20/45 serve as revenue-generating businesses. The session closes with Q&A on copy trading, detailed on-chain metrics/triggers, onboarding newer subnets, and candid takes on TAOFlow’s implications for research subnets.

A live, on-location Revenue Search featuring LeadPoet, a Bittensor-powered subnet/product that automates outbound sales by crowdsourcing high-quality leads from miners, validating them, and selling them to clients—initially via sales agencies for scale. The model gates access by burning alpha, creating a flywheel (more demand → larger reward pool → tougher competition → better data → more demand) and plans to evolve from selling leads to booking meetings. Early pricing spans self-serve subscriptions, volume API, and enterprise deals, with strong emphasis on data quality, anti-gaming validation, and eventual conversion-based miner rewards via CRM integrations. Beta opens in December with an open-source qualification agent; early access targets January, with comparisons to Apollo highlighting fresher, re-validated data and broader coverage through permissionless miners.

After a short hiatus, Revenue Search returns with Crucible Labs: Ala and David explain why Crucible exists: do the unglamorous, high-leverage work the foundation can’t—validate and allocate, build research and investor materials (via Unsupervised Capital), ship a TAO-native wallet with an auto-allocator and Ledger support, and incubate/accelerate stronger subnets. A big theme is governance and speed: DTO changed incentives quickly by design; true decentralization is the destination, but right now rapid, iterative tweaks are vital to keep a permissionless system healthy. Their near-term North Star is onboarding capital and talent through clarity and tooling, not hype: make staking/allocating simpler, abstract complexity, and help investors and builders see where value accrues.

They’re bullish that Bittensor is an “anything-incentive layer,” not just AI—and expect breakout products (e.g., dev-tools like Ridges) to pull mainstream attention and capital far more than explanations of emissions.

This Revenue Search spotlights Subnet 32 “It's AI,” an AI-text detector focused on education. Founder Sergey demos a clean web app that flags AI-written passages, highlights “AI-impactful” tokens, and generates shareable reports; it also offers plagiarism checks, batch scanning, API/Moodle/Zapier integrations, with Canvas coming. Citing a new, large unified benchmark (to be presented at an AI-in-education conference), It's AI claims top average accuracy (AUC ~0.92) versus GPTZero and others. The team targets universities with B2B plans while running low-cost miner inference; early revenue (~$2k/mo) comes mostly from enterprise subscriptions. Hosts push a go-to-market pivot: niche hard into higher-ed, raise enterprise pricing, personalise outreach to ~4k U.S. institutions, and avoid “poacher vs. gamekeeper” branding conflicts with student tools.

This Revenue Search features Subnet 113 (Taonado)—a non-custodial, Tornado-style privacy mixer on the Bittensor EVM. Users deposit fixed denominations (starting with 1 TAO, with 10/100 TAO pools planned), receive a secret note, and later withdraw to a fresh wallet to break linkability; miners simulate realistic flows to deepen the anonymity set and earn the subnet’s alpha. Revenue comes from ~2.5–5% mixing fees (plus gas) and “APY harvesting” by staking idle shielded capital, with an intent to auto buyback-and-burn the alpha. Contracts are a hardened Tornado fork, validation/scoring runs on-chain (no standalone validator), and the team is bootstrapping ~5,000 TAO liquidity to enable larger pools while advocating privacy-by-default across Bittensor.

This Revenue Search jumps into a deep-dive with Bitcast (Tom & Will). Bitcast pitches itself not as an agency but a decentralised ad tooling layer that lets brands brief creators at scale, with AI verifying message-fit and rewards tied to real attention (watch time/eyeballs via official platform data), not vanity metrics. They share traction to date (hundreds of Bittensor videos, ~hundreds of thousands of views, big watch-time) and the blockers they’ve been fixing: a no-code miner (optional, 5% fee) to onboard non-technical creators, a social-proofed website + multilingual outreach, and a scalable “ad read” model where brands pre-fund a budget that creators draw down from—so spend can flex and is linked to measured outcomes. Near term, revenue supports the ALPHA token (currently buyback/burn), with ~40–50 TAO/month cited today and ambitions to tap much larger Web2 budgets.

Will unveils Bitcast’s X (Twitter) integration: map a niche (starting with Bittensor) and compute an influence score using an endorsements graph (quotes/retweets/mentions; PageRank-style). A rolling top ~150 become eligible to mine; entry requires endorsements from those already inside, discouraging bots and low-signal spam. Quality > quantity: limited posts per brief, payouts weighted by who endorses your tweet, and brands can target specific niches/languages (e.g., dev-productivity, infra, other crypto-AI communities). Onboarding is dead simple: paste a wallet, tweet a one-time code, you’re connected. TikTok (different incentive design) comes next, followed by a self-serve ad portal so brands can set budgets, launch, and see results. Q&A covers collusion risks (mitigated by breadth/weights), creator incentives (APY/education; fiat off-ramps likely later), and expansion beyond crypto.

Siam kicks off by revealing a commissioned Bittensor artwork (“Michealeagτao”) he’s gifting to Const, then he and Mark run a no-guest AMA. They cover near-term market timing (expecting the bigger move into late-2025), the risk to compute subnets if TAO fell sharply (miner exodus) versus a healthier ecosystem at higher TAO, and how funding really follows credible, revenue-led plans (examples: Targon, sundae_bar, Shak recycling ~$1.4M into growth). A big chunk focuses on the TAO halving: pools fill more slowly so volatility rises for thinner subnets; historically halvings are “nothing-burgers” day-of, with the impact compounding over time.

They dig into alphanomics: buyback-and-burn is simple but building a digital asset (alpha) treasury that compounds—and can be borrowed against—is often stronger. Siam runs quick yield math (e.g., Apex’s high APY) to show how accumulating alpha can 4–12× holdings over a few years even before price moves. They expect more “captive demand” models (hold alpha for access), validators and front-ends to package subnet services, and ultimately a power-law leaderboard (S&P-style concentration). DSV’s approach: partner for the long term, avoid short-term rotation, prioritize force-multiplying subnets (e.g., Hippius storage, LeadPoet leads) and real revenue. They close with basics on DSV (min ~$50k; regulated) and promise more Revenue Search sessions.