Decentralized AI In Action: Subnet.ai Founder On Challenges, Adoption, And The Future Of Open-Source Intelligence

by
Alisa Davidson

Revealed: February 27, 2026 at 6:20 am Up to date: February 27, 2026 at 6:09 am

by Anastasiia O

Edited and fact-checked:
February 27, 2026 at 6:20 am

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In lots of industries, decentralized AI faces skepticism as a result of its real-world utility isn’t instantly seen; critics query whether or not token-driven incentives can constantly produce dependable outputs and fear that experimental, open networks could fall wanting the requirements required for production-ready functions. 

Bittensor, a protocol designed to incentivize open-source AI contributions, gives a tangible reply. In accordance with Barry Silbert, founding father of Digital Foreign money Group, greater than $100 million per 12 months is out there for contributors competing throughout 128 subnets to generate decentralized intelligence, with particular person subnets akin to BitMind distributing as a lot as $18,000 per day to high contributors at one level final 12 months.

Moreover, the financial potential of open-source AI is hanging. Harvard analysis from March 2024 estimated that open-source software program generates $8.8 trillion in financial worth whereas costing simply $4.15 billion to develop, suggesting that stronger incentives in high-impact areas like AI may unlock even better world worth. 

Bittensor represents the primary protocol-scale experiment testing that thesis, making a decentralized ecosystem the place contributors are rewarded for producing actual outputs and delivery merchandise.

Mark Basa, founding father of Subnet.ai, has constructed a complete dashboard that tracks exercise throughout all 128 subnets, revealing which networks pay essentially the most, what they’re constructing, and who’s incomes. Notable examples embrace Chutes, which has processed over 9.1 trillion tokens and serves 400,000 customers, rising as the highest open-source supplier on OpenRouter. The system’s emissions mannequin provides market strain, progressively squeezing out underperforming subnets and reinforcing the precept that permissionless protocols can coordinate significant financial exercise whereas compensating contributors at aggressive charges.

On this interview with MPost he explores how Bittensor’s community demonstrates real-world utility, the alternatives and challenges of decentralized AI, and what the longer term could maintain for open-source intelligence constructed exterior conventional company constructions.

How does Bittensor’s development to 128 subnets show real-world utility, and the way would you reply to skeptics asking, “The place’s the use case?”

The skeptics asking “the place’s the use case” ought to know that miners on Bittensor are being incentivized by subnets to supply actual outputs and closing solutions. As a result of these are folks from all around the world with totally different backgrounds and no shared firm tradition, the pondering is extra various and the solutions will progressively grow to be higher than something produced throughout the partitions of a single group. The billions being raised in Silicon Valley for centralized AI will wrestle to match the velocity, value, and robustness of what an open supply incentivized community can produce over time. 

I feel wholesome skepticism must also be utilized to the ecosystem itself. Some subnets have obtained hundreds of thousands in emissions and constructed little or no, and instruments like subnet.ai make it simple to check what a subnet has earned in opposition to what it has really shipped. The extra telling sign are subnets working with modest emissions which are quietly buying clients and constructing actual merchandise, as a result of the tradition of a decentralized community in the end defines its integrity, and that tradition is now within the arms of a world neighborhood somewhat than a handful of firms.

Why is public sentiment shifting towards decentralized AI, and the way does Bittensor match into this pattern?

Take Meta for instance. It has confronted lawsuit after lawsuit for knowledge breaches, algorithm manipulation, and intentionally engineering addictive experiences. Corporations like this had each alternative to make use of their know-how to construct one thing genuinely higher for humanity and selected earnings as a substitute. Sooner or later the general public notices, and after they do, they begin on the lookout for alternate options. That stated, it could be naive to suppose Massive Tech goes to step apart quietly. Politicians nonetheless have to get elected, VC funds and hedge funds won’t be dashing to spend money on open supply, and there’s no in a single day transition. 

What really drives the shift is healthier merchandise and extra freedom, and that’s the place Bittensor issues. The warning price including is that backing subnets that don’t ship is only a decentralized model of the identical drawback. The subnets which are delivery actual merchandise and incomes belief are those that can outline whether or not decentralized AI really lives as much as what individuals are hoping for.

What do Bittensor’s excessive TAO token rewards point out about funding AI through crypto networks, and is that this mannequin sustainable?

The token rewards are a real sign that the community is funding actual work at a scale conventional fashions wrestle to match. An engineer mining on Bittensor can earn tens of 1000’s per day which is a compelling motive for somebody at Google to rethink the place they need to construct. That type of incentive is highly effective and it’s one of many issues that makes Bittensor attention-grabbing.

However sustainability is the proper query to be asking. The sincere reply is that subnets and miners who sport and exploit the system are contributing to its downfall, whether or not they notice it or not. Fast protocol adjustments with no warning, emissions going to subnets which have by no means shipped something, and infighting throughout the neighborhood over who deserves extra are tiny cracks within the stone that ultimately carry down the tower. None of this attracts severe enterprises or one of the best builders on the earth. 

There’s additionally a motive many subnets couldn’t increase from a VC. In that world, in the event you grift you get sued. Right here, the implications are much less rapid, which suggests the tradition has to do the work that authorized accountability does elsewhere.

Sustainability appears to be like like folks being paid for sincere work that truly improves the community. When that’s taking place, the mannequin is genuinely higher than conventional funding. When it isn’t, you’re simply recreating the identical extractive incentives in a decentralized wrapper.

Which Bittensor AI utility classes appeal to essentially the most participation and rewards, and why?

Participation and rewards are pushed by emissions, so the very best market cap subnets naturally appeal to essentially the most consideration. However extra miners doesn’t all the time imply higher outcomes as competitors will get fierce and margins shrink. What’s attention-grabbing is that low and mid cap subnets are inclined to have full miner slots too as a result of the barrier to entry is decrease, so participation is definitely extra unfold throughout the ecosystem than the headline numbers recommend. The subnets gaining actual traction are usually those the place the work miners are doing maps to one thing that truly will get used.

What patterns emerge in contributions and rewards throughout Bittensor’s 128 subnets, and who captures many of the worth?

Worth isn’t evenly distributed and actually it shouldn’t be. Chutes (SN64) sits at an $83M market cap, which is $50M above the second largest subnet, and is capturing slightly below 20% of each day protocol emissions. That hole tells you a large number about how the community is maturing. A handful of subnets are doing the heavy lifting whereas a protracted tail of others are nonetheless discovering their footing.

What’s extra attention-grabbing to watch by means of subnet.ai is that among the subnets offering real worth to the open supply neighborhood should not being rewarded proportionally, just because they haven’t found out tips on how to optimize TAOflow. That’s an actual drawback price being attentive to as a result of the protocol nonetheless performs too giant a task in emissions, and if you understand how to sport the system on the high, you’ll be able to. The subnets that deserve extra consideration are sometimes those quietly constructing with modest emissions, and proper now the market doesn’t all the time replicate that.

What makes Chutes distinctive in Bittensor, and what does its development reveal about demand for decentralized AI compute?

Chutes is Bittensor’s moonshot. Processing 9.1 trillion tokens since late 2024 with a whole lot of 1000’s of customers is a exceptional quantity for any infrastructure play, not to mention a decentralized one. The expansion is actual and the demand it displays for inexpensive, open GPU compute is much more actual.

The sincere rigidity although is that only a few of these customers know they’re on Bittensor. Chutes doesn’t do a lot advertising or PR that places the broader ecosystem on the map, and numerous the capital flowing into it’s there for the APY somewhat than a perception in what the community is constructing. That’s not a criticism of Chutes, the product speaks for itself, however for Bittensor to totally profit from having a subnet of that scale, that story must be instructed higher.

What does rising institutional engagement point out in regards to the credibility and way forward for decentralized AI?

Institutional engagement solves a bit of the puzzle however it’s just one piece. The tradition inside Bittensor proper now could be closely centered on establishments shopping for low cost TAO and alpha tokens to promote when the market is larger. That’s superb, however Bittensor turns into one thing if subnets can construct actual companies. Tonnes of initiatives hit large marketcaps after which slowly die, principally because of no product market match. I feel part of the lacking puzzle is retail. That entry level, that consumer-facing layer that pulls billions of atypical customers into the ecosystem, hasn’t been constructed or positioned but, till now. We constructed subnet.ai as a result of we consider in the event you’re going to carry severe retail and institutional capital, there must be a analysis layer that offers you the knowledge it’s essential belief subnets. Shopping for a subnet’s token is secondary – we have to construct belief and clearly clarify what these subnets are literally doing. Solely then will establishments and retail traders alike could have the ah-huh second and throw all the things into Bittensor.

The larger situation is that too many subnets are being under-supported. Paying a registration payment and placing your identify on a deck isn’t incubation. These groups want business offers, branding, advisors, and actual enterprise improvement assist. Establishments have are available, made cash, and moved on from loads of blockchain initiatives that are actually useless. The query price asking isn’t just whether or not Bittensor can appeal to capital, however whether or not the companies being constructed on it are sustainable sufficient to nonetheless be right here in years to come back. Placing all the flowery logos on a subnet’s profile doesn’t evaluate to a subnet doing enterprise and fixing actual issues folks need to pay for.

Bittensor already helps consumer-facing apps—Targon (SN4) powers the Dippy roleplay chat with over 4 million customers. Do you suppose decentralized AI is approaching mainstream adoption by finish customers, and what sorts of client or enterprise functions are prone to emerge because the ecosystem grows?

Dippy lately offered Subnet 11 and stepped again from working subnets completely, recognizing that their actual value-add to Bittensor is constructing merchandise on high of the community, not managing infrastructure. If something, the sale demonstrates how beneficial this digital ‘’AI actual property’’ has grow to be. The subnets powering the inference behind your app are price proudly owning, and the builders who perceive that early could have a big benefit.

The tip aim for decentralized AI, like most decentralized know-how, is to fade into the background completely. Billions in capital received’t circulation into this ecosystem till folks belief what they’re shopping for or till the merchandise constructed on high of it work. The typical individual utilizing a sport, a artistic software, or any client app shouldn’t have to know what infrastructure it runs on and subnets shouldn’t be pitching this both because it causes a distraction and leads potential clients down a rabbit gap. That’s already taking place with merchandise like Pax Historia, a YC-backed alternate historical past sandbox sport working on Chutes (SN64) with 35,000+ each day customers processing 100 billion tokens per week, most of whom don’t know they’re utilizing decentralized infrastructure. What drives adoption from right here is builders selecting decentralized infrastructure as a result of the economics make sense, and as extra of them determine that out, the community results comply with.

What do you see as the largest problem or false impression about decentralized AI that outsiders might need? 

The largest false impression is that decentralized AI is routinely higher or safer simply because it isn’t managed by an enormous company. The folks working and proudly owning decentralized providers might be simply as self-serving as anybody in a centralized construction, and numerous initiatives that decision themselves decentralized nonetheless have a handful of individuals making all the true selections. That’s price being sincere about.

The explanation these applied sciences nonetheless matter is that when decentralization really works, it adjustments who will get to take part. As a substitute of AI being one thing that replaces folks, it turns into one thing folks can construct actual companies on high of. That shift, from being a client of another person’s know-how to being an proprietor or builder inside an open community, is the chance that doesn’t get talked about sufficient.

Looking forward to 2025–2026, what key trade developments ought to we look ahead to in decentralized AI? 

The pattern price watching is who really builds profitable firms on high of decentralized AI infrastructure. Probably the most thrilling model of the place this goes is open supply enterprise infrastructure that doesn’t depend on any single entity, the place somebody with ambition and a good suggestion however no technical background can launch an app, run their advertising, deal with funds, and scale, all by means of an clever layer that removes the boundaries which have traditionally saved that type of entrepreneurship out of attain. If that will get constructed correctly, the entrepreneur financial system may discover.

Alisa, a devoted journalist on the MPost, makes a speciality of cryptocurrency, zero-knowledge proofs, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a eager eye for rising developments and applied sciences, she delivers complete protection to tell and have interaction readers within the ever-evolving panorama of digital finance.

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