The Next ₿itcoin
You must understand what came before to understand what is ahead of you.
Dictatorship Freedom
We’re told we live in a free world, but most of what we see, hear, & believe is filtered & controlled by a handful of central powers: governments, banks, intelligence agencies, Big Tech, & some could believe maybe some old-money bloodline elites. They write the rules to the laws, own the data, & profit from our attention, or lack thereof.
The system hasn’t collapsed — it’s simply been exposed.
But a quiet shift is unfolding beneath the surface.
Across nature, society, & technology, power is moving from top-down control to decentralized coordination. Just like the internet broke free from centralized servers, artificial intelligence is beginning the same transformation.
Today’s most powerful & utilized AI is run like a digital dictatorship. Companies like OpenAI & Google DeepMind decide what’s safe, what’s hidden, & ultimately what’s profitable… all behind closed-source code, which provides zero transparency.
But a new model is rising…
one where the crowd defines the goal, & the network discovers the solution.
This isn’t just technical. It’s philosophical.
The future belongs to systems that are open, decentralized, & adaptive.
Because that’s where real freedom & real intelligence… emerge.
☯️ Bitcoin ←→ Bittensor
Bitcoin was born from the ashes of the 2008 financial crisis. It broke the banking system’s monopoly by creating a decentralized, trustless network where anyone could participate — no permission needed.
It turned money into open-source code.
Now, Bittensor is applying that same playbook, but to artificial intelligence.
Where Bitcoin rewards miners for securing transactions, Bittensor rewards intelligence miners for training & improving AI.
Instead of verifying blocks, it verifies knowledge. Instead of hashing, it rewards useful output.
If Bitcoin is peer-to-peer money.
Bittensor is peer-to-peer intelligence.
It’s a decentralized answer to broken, black-box AI systems & one of the most important innovations of this era.
As crypto evolves, one project stands out with Bitcoin’s original ethos at its core: Bittensor ($TAO).
If you’ve followed past posts, you know Poppy is a Bitcoin loyalist through & through. But when people oftentimes ask…
“If there’s one digital asset outside of BTC that Poppy actually believes in — what is it?”
This is it.
Bittensor isn’t just another altcoin. It’s a living, breathing network reshaping how AI is built, measured, & monetized — with no central authority or no VC or Founder’s taking major token supply to eventually take a dump on you. 💩
It rewards intelligence the way Bitcoin rewards computation.
And it genuinely feels like to Poppy, as a comparison, just like Bitcoin in 2011…
It’s early.
⚙️ How ‘The Bittensor’ Machine Works:
At its core, Bittensor is a decentralized network where people contribute to AI & get paid for it. It’s made up of modular building blocks working together in real time.
🌐 Subnets
Think of subnets like departments inside a decentralized AI organization.
Each one focuses on a specific task:
Writing content
Trading predictions
Language models
Image generation
And more
Anyone can create a subnet — and each one has its own rules, tasks, and reward logic.
🧑💻 Miners
Miners do the work.
They submit outputs (like AI-generated text or predictions) based on the subnet’s task.
Example: In Subnet 1, miners respond to chat prompts (think decentralized ChatGPT).
🧪 Validators
Validators evaluate that work.
They score how well each miner performs, using a method defined by the subnet creator.
Each validator submits scores in the form of a score matrix — ranking each miner’s output over a set time period.
⚖️ Yuma Consensus
This is the on-chain algorithm that acts like a referee.
It uses the validators' score matrix to fairly distribute TAO emissions — the network’s reward system.
Yuma ensures that:
Majority consensus determines rewards (democratic weighting)
Manipulation is minimized
Only quality outputs get rewarded
It’s like a decentralized, programmable performance review system built directly into the blockchain.
🪙 The Engine… to the Bittensor Machine
Everything runs on the $TAO token:
Miners and validators get paid in TAO
Subnet creators stake TAO to launch new subnets
Holders can delegate or govern the network
TAO aligns all incentives — powering the AI economy through fair, decentralized value flow.
🧩 Putting It All Together:
Subnet defines the task → e.g., answer a question
Miners do the work → generate an answer
Validators score the work → assess quality
Scores feed into Yuma → determines who gets paid
TAO gets distributed → rewards go to miners, validators, & the subnet creator
Boom, pizza gate puzzle solved.
Think of Bittensor as an AI factory…
But instead of one company running it, it’s a permissionless network where anyone can build, contribute, or get rewarded… in real time, at global internet scale.
Open Access, Open Incentives
Anyone can:
Launch a subnet (with 1,000 TAO)
Build a validator to reward miners
Delegate TAO to support projects they believe in
Use TAO to access cutting-edge AI models
Bittensor breaks down barriers. No resumes. No permission. If your idea is good, you get rewarded.
Here are a few real-time use cases, happening right now:
📊 SN8 → A subnet providing real-time trading signals from competing quant models.
🧠 ReplyTensor → A decentralized ChatGPT alternative.
🧬 Healthi → AI-based medical diagnostics, securely analyzing health records.
🤖 The New Era
No, Poppy isn’t referring to your flat bill hat.
We’re entering an era of computational capitalism. Where value is created & measured not by banks or governments, but by open systems coordinating energy, intelligence, & creativity across the globe.
This is not just a new crypto project. It has the ability to be a new model for society.
Just like neural networks changed how computers learn, Bittensor may change how humans coordinate, compete, & create… through decentralized AI.
Bitcoin disrupted money.
Bittensor is here to disrupt intelligence.
& it’s only just beginning…
📖 Bible Verse
"Ask the former generation and find out what their ancestors learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow."
— Job 8:8–9
Reflection: True innovation honors the lessons of the past. Just as Bitcoin disrupted finance, Bittensor builds on that same decentralized spirit, now applied to artificial intelligence & digital assets. To understand what’s ahead, we must first understand what came before.
Honestly I've been through the mill from ICOs back in 2017 to the current wave of memecoins and nothing excites me as much as Bittensor at this time.
Speculation as a use case and enrichment of founders without any end product has been a core feature of much of the altcoin space; TAO is attempting to flip that script by incentivizing useful AI models.
For the crypto space as a whole, the recent regulatory clarity fueled by the current administration is enabling the next wave of innovations without fear of repercussions. There is hope for the future.
I appreciate your market takes as they are measured and not fuelled by wanton speculation. As for this crypto bull market, I see the possibility of a big wash out by the end of the year. It always ends sooner than anyone wants or believes!
Great piece Tyler, for sure TAO is not just another altcoin. Its the most impactful thing in crypto I've seen since Bitcoin and now with over 100 active subnets the sky is the limit for real-time use cases... You are right this is just the beginning of a wave of decentralized AI disruption. Thanks for helping to spread the word.