Data sources

Where each number comes from, how current it is, and where it can be wrong. If you are making a decision that costs money, read this page.

Our sources

Source	What it provides
Bittensor chain RPC	Direct queries against the Subtensor network, including subnet metagraphs — neuron UIDs, hotkeys, incentive, trust, consensus, and stake.
Taostats API	Indexed subnet, validator, pool, and transaction data, including historical series that would be expensive to reconstruct from raw blocks.
On-chain subnet identity	Subnet names, descriptions, logos, and the repository, Discord, and website links shown on each subnet page.

Miner leaderboards and reward distributions come from the chain metagraph rather than from an indexer, because incentive is the value miner earnings depend on and we want it as close to the source as possible.

Freshness and caching

TaoScope caches upstream responses. Caching keeps the site responsive and keeps us inside third-party rate limits, at the cost of some latency behind the chain head.

Cached responses are served for a short interval that varies by endpoint. Market and transaction data refresh more frequently than structural subnet data.
When an upstream provider rate-limits us, we serve the most recent cached response rather than failing or showing zeros. That data may be older than usual.
Transaction lists are polled rather than streamed. Live streaming was removed because it triggered upstream rate limiting that degraded the whole site.
The chain RPC is queried on demand for metagraph data, with results cached briefly.

Do not treat displayed values as the chain head

For anything time-sensitive — most importantly the registration cost immediately before you register — confirm against the chain with btcli.

What we derive

Most values pass through unchanged. These are the exceptions, and each states its inputs.

Derived value	Formula	Assumption
Daily emission	Per-block emission × 7,200	12-second blocks, which is the network's target block time.
Miner pool per day	Daily emission × 0.41	The protocol emission split of 18% owner, 41% miners, 41% validators.
Per-miner earnings	Miner pool per day × that miner's normalised incentive	Incentive is normalised across the subnet, so it is already a share.
TAO from RAO	RAO ÷ 10⁹	Fixed chain constant.
Neuron scores	Raw u16 ÷ 65,535	Chain encodes these scores as unsigned 16-bit integers.
Slot utilisation	Occupied UIDs ÷ max_allowed_uids	Both values read from the chain.

TaoScope publishes no editorial scores. There are no difficulty ratings, no hardware tiers, no task categories, and no opportunity indices. Anything of that kind would be our opinion presented in the visual language of measured data.

Known limitations

Missing values

Not every subnet reports every field. Where a value is absent we display “—”. Filters that sort on a missing value exclude that subnet rather than treating it as zero, which would otherwise place unknown subnets at the top of any ascending sort.

Snapshot timing

Different endpoints are captured at slightly different moments. Two values on the same page can therefore come from blocks a short distance apart, which is usually invisible but occasionally explains a small inconsistency.

Metagraph availability

Miner leaderboards depend on a chain RPC call that can fail or time out under load. When that happens the section reports that data is unavailable instead of rendering an empty or partial list.

Historical registration cost

The registration cost chart is built from snapshots recorded in your own browser as you use the site. It is not a complete on-chain history, and it starts empty on a new device.

Historical returns

APR and APY figures are derived from recent observed returns. They describe the past and are not a projection.

Verifying independently

For decisions with money attached, check the chain yourself. The CLI is the most direct route:

btcli subnets show --netuid <N> for live subnet parameters, including the current registration cost.
btcli subnets list for a network-wide overview.
btcli wallet balance for your own balances.

Found a discrepancy?

If a TaoScope figure disagrees with the chain, we want to know. Report it via the contact page with the subnet or address and roughly when you observed it.

Last updated August 7, 2026