Bittensor: A Modest Proposal

Bittensor (TAO 2.43%). A funny name, isn’t it? Like something a robot would mispronounce. They say it’s a cryptocurrency for artificial intelligence. Which, let’s be honest, mostly means it’s a way for people to gamble on algorithms. So it goes. The idea is that developers use it to train their machines, and the token lets you access the results. A digital handshake between silicon and speculation.

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This past week, it went up a bit, over 5%. Apparently, people are feeling optimistic about AI. A dangerous thing, optimism. It usually leads to disappointment. But a 5% gain is a 5% gain. In this business, we look for anything that isn’t a loss. A modest return is a victory.

What’s driving it? Well, the usual. Hype, mostly. But there’s something else, a little quirk in the system. They had a “halving,” a reduction in the number of new tokens created. Fewer tokens floating around means each one is worth a little more. Basic economics. It also means someone, somewhere, is getting richer while the rest of us are just trying to keep up. So it goes.

They say three-quarters of the tokens are now “staked.” Which means people are locking them up, hoping the price goes higher. It’s like a digital potlatch. Everyone brings their treasures, hoping to get more back. But someone always leaves empty-handed.

Usage is up, too. More people are building things on this network. Which is good, I suppose. More activity means more potential value. But it also means more complexity. And complexity, my friends, is the enemy of a good dividend. A simple, predictable income stream. That’s what we want. Not a rollercoaster ride fueled by artificial intelligence.

This token is still down over 50% for the year. A painful reminder that most investments don’t work out. But maybe, just maybe, it has some upside. If the network scales, if it attracts more developers, if the AI revolution actually happens. A lot of ifs. But in this business, we deal in probabilities. And sometimes, even a long shot pays off. So it goes. It’s a gamble, of course. But isn’t everything?

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2026-02-16 01:02