TAO plunges 18% following departure of top BitTensor subnet operator over decentralization concerns and public disagreement with founder.
Regulation & Gov ·
TAO, the native token of the BitTensor network, declined more than 18% within 24 hours following a public dispute between BitTensor founder Jacob Steeves and Covenant AI, a prominent subnet operator. Covenant AI announced its departure from the network, with its founder Sam Dare asserting that Steeves had exercised centralized control—including suspending the firm's subnet emissions and overriding authority over community spaces. Steeves countered that Dare himself had been deprecating channels and deleting posts, and denied having the ability to suspend emissions.
The core disagreement centered on decentralization claims. Covenant AI operated three subnets focused on distinct AI tasks, including Templar (subnet 3) for decentralized pre-training and Basilica (subnet 39) for decentralized compute. Dare stated that the firm could no longer build on infrastructure whose foundational promise of decentralization and permissionlessness contradicted its actual governance structure, and Covenant's subnets were subsequently marked as deprecated.
What remains unclear is whether the market's negative reaction reflects broader concerns about BitTensor's governance model or sentiment specific to Covenant's departure. The token had previously surged roughly 50% in March following attention to Covenant's permissionless model training, gaining visibility among industry figures, before erasing those gains in the recent selloff.