Subnets and alpha
A subnet is a self-contained competition with its own task, its own scoring rules, and since dynamic TAO, its own token.
What a subnet is
A subnet is an independent incentive market running on Bittensor. Each one is identified by a netuid and is created by an owner who locks TAO as collateral. The owner decides what the subnet is for and — critically — writes the validator code that scores miners.
Within a subnet, the owner controls:
- The task miners must perform, and the software interface they must expose.
- The scoring mechanism validators use to convert miner responses into weights.
- Hyperparameters such as
tempo,immunity_period, and the UID slot ceilingmax_allowed_uids. - Whether registrations are currently open.
Subnets are not interchangeable
Dynamic TAO and alpha tokens
Dynamic TAO (dTAO), activated in February 2025, changed how capital is allocated across subnets. Before dTAO, root network validators voted on how emission was divided. Under dTAO, the market decides.
Every subnet now has its own token, called alpha. When you stake TAO into a subnet, your TAO enters that subnet's liquidity pool and you receive alpha in return. Alpha is subnet-specific: alpha from netuid 4 is a different asset from alpha from netuid 64, and each has its own price denominated in TAO.
A subnet's share of network emission follows the TAO flowing into it. Subnets that attract stake receive more emission; subnets that lose stake receive less. Participants inside a subnet are paid in that subnet's alpha, which they can hold, stake, or sell back into the pool for TAO.
Alpha carries price risk
The liquidity pool
Each subnet holds an automated market maker pool containing TAO on one side and alpha on the other. The ratio between the two sets the alpha price. Every block, new TAO is injected into the pool and new alpha is minted against it.
| Value | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Alpha price | TAO per alpha, set by the pool ratio. This is the rate at which alpha converts back to TAO right now. |
| Pool TAO | TAO held in the pool. Deeper pools absorb larger trades with less slippage. |
| Market cap | Circulating alpha valued at the current alpha price, denominated in TAO. |
| 24h volume | TAO traded against the pool over the last day. Low volume relative to market cap signals thin liquidity. |
TaoScope's alpha buy simulator estimates the slippage on a given purchase using the live pool balances.
How a subnet earns emission
The chain mints TAO each block and divides it between subnets in proportion to their share of net TAO inflow, smoothed as a moving average. That share is converted to alpha at the pool price and then split among the subnet's participants at each epoch boundary.
The split within a subnet is fixed by the protocol: 18% to the subnet owner, then the remainder divided evenly, giving roughly 41% to miners and 41% to validators and their stakers. The full mechanism is covered in Emissions and Yuma Consensus.
Reading a subnet on TaoScope
Activity and health
Registered neurons against the UID ceiling tells you how contested a subnet is. A subnet at capacity evicts an existing neuron on every new registration, so entering it means displacing someone. Free slots mean you can register without pushing anyone out.
Economics
Daily emission is the size of the prize. Registration cost is the price of admission, and it moves: the recycled-TAO burn rises with each registration and decays over time. Both are shown on the subnet detail page, alongside the miner emission pool derived from them.
What TaoScope does not tell you
We do not publish hardware requirements, task categories, or difficulty ratings for individual subnets. Those change frequently, are not available from any chain source, and would be guesswork on our part. Use the linked repository and Discord for that information.
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