Asia Morning Briefing: dTAO from Bittensor Provides Alternative AI Access for Retail, Outside Robinhood SPVs

Bittensor’s dTAO Unlocks Retail Access to Decentralized AI

Staking in Bittensor’s subnets is emerging as a unique way for retail investors to tap into decentralized AI, potentially offering upside that rivals established players like OpenAI or Nvidia.

Earlier this year, Robinhood drew attention by offering tokenized shares intended to give retail users exposure to OpenAI via special purpose vehicles (SPVs). However, OpenAI’s counsel warned these tokens are not equity and labeled the initiative unauthorized, highlighting the potential legal and financial risks for investors.

The broader challenge is clear: most leading AI firms, including OpenAI and Anthropic, remain private. Their growth is captured by venture capital and strategic backers such as Microsoft and Google, leaving retail investors largely locked out. Options are limited to Big Tech equities like Nvidia or synthetic exposure through SPVs.

Bittensor provides a decentralized alternative.

Since February 2024, the network’s Dynamic TAO (dTAO) upgrade has allowed staking to function like venture capital. TAO holders allocate directly to subnets—each hosting an on-chain AI project—and earn “alpha” tokens based on performance. Staking determines which projects receive network emissions, creating a market-driven incubator that rewards tangible value creation.

“The subnets form an ecosystem within an ecosystem, rewarding performance and utility through staking returns and alpha token appreciation,” said Zerobit, CEO of Talisman, during Taiwan Blockchain Week.

Two subnets exemplify the model: Ridges (SN62), a coding agent, recently surpassed Anthropic’s Claude 4 on the SWE-Bench code benchmark, achieving 80% accuracy at a fraction of centralized compute costs. Chutes (SN64) serves as a decentralized, serverless compute platform for AI, hosting billions of tokens daily and undercutting traditional cloud providers by up to 85%. It is also the largest decentralized provider of open-source AI inference at scale.

For retail investors, subnet staking offers an alternative to SPVs, with verifiable, on-chain performance and permissionless participation.

“Unlike projects locked behind insider deals, Bittensor’s dTAO opens access from day one, allowing investors to share in AI’s growth through alpha tokens,” said Brad Fuller of Bittensor.ai.

As subnets attract stake and compound value, dTAO provides a rare avenue for retail investors to access early-stage AI upside without waiting for Wall Street.

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