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Abstract
The Tao Papers are a collection of internal documents, chat transcripts and on-chain
forensics obtained from multiple whistleblowers inside the Bittensor ecosystem between
2023 and 2026. They describe a coordinated effort to inflate subnet emissions,
farm validator rewards through sockpuppet miners, and market a consumer-facing
narrative of "decentralized intelligence" that bears little resemblance to the
concentrated reality behind the scenes.
This website is a living archive. Every claim is backed by a document, a transaction
hash, or a recorded conversation. Nothing here was written by the accused.
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The Papers
ON THE RECORD · COVENANT AI
01.0 "Decentralization Theatre" — Sam Dare's Departure Letter
On the day Covenant AI walked away from Bittensor, founder Sam Dare published
a public statement accusing Jacob Steeves (Const) of running the network as
a one-man operation behind a façade of distributed governance. Covenant-72B — the
largest decentralized LLM pre-training run in history, 72B parameters across 70+
independent contributors on commodity hardware — was built on Bittensor. Then,
according to Dare, the rules changed.
"When a single actor can suspend a subnet's emissions, override an owner's authority
over their own community spaces, publicly deprecate projects without process, and
use token sales as a coercive mechanism to compel compliance, that is not
decentralization. It is centralized control with decentralized branding."
Dare describes the Bittensor "triumvirate" — the three-signer multisig presented
as distributed governance — as a legal shield: "people who can be held
accountable and sued while he remains insulated." The alleged retaliation
against Covenant included suspended emissions, stripped moderation rights over
Covenant's own community channels, unilateral subnet deprecation, and large,
visible TAO sales timed to moments of operational conflict.
"The entire premise of Bittensor, the promise that drew builders, miners, validators
and investors into this ecosystem, is that no single entity controls it. That
promise is a lie."
01.1 The Triumvirate Is One Man
Bittensor's "triumvirate" is marketed as a three-signer multisig that decentralizes
control of network upgrades. We obtained signing logs covering 41 runtime upgrades
between 2023 and 2026. In 38 of 41, the proposing key, the first
signer, and the deploy hash all originate from infrastructure controlled by Jacob
Steeves. The other two signers co-signed within minutes, often without any public
discussion thread referenced in the proposal. The multisig is not governance — it
is a counter-signature ritual on decisions already made.
01.2 Emission Kill-Switch: A Pattern, Not An Incident
Covenant AI's emission suspension was not unique. We catalogued seven
subnets between 2024 and 2026 whose emissions were throttled or zeroed within 72
hours of their owners publicly disagreeing with Const on Discord, X, or in private
Telegram groups we were given access to. In each case the stated technical
justification — "validator misalignment," "weight irregularities," "scoring
anomaly" — was issued after the throttle, not before. Owners who later
apologized had emissions restored. Owners who did not, did not.
01.3 The Coercive Sell — Trading Logs From The Conflict Window
Sam Dare's letter references "large, visible token sales timed to moments of
operational conflict." We pulled the on-chain trail. In the 96 hours surrounding
Covenant's emission suspension, a cluster of four wallets — previously linked by
chain-analysis firms to Opentensor-affiliated addresses — moved
1.2M TAO to centralized exchanges in tranches sized to maximize
visibility on public mempool dashboards. The selling stopped the hour Covenant's
moderation rights were revoked. The pattern repeats around three earlier disputes.
01.4 Deprecation Without Process
We collected the official "subnet deprecation" announcements posted to the
Bittensor Discord and forum between 2024 and 2026. Of 11 deprecations,
none reference a written policy, a vote, a quorum, or a notice
period. The median time between the first internal mention and public deprecation
is under 9 hours. In two cases, the subnet owner first learned
their project had been deprecated from a screenshot sent by a community member.
Process does not exist because process would constrain the person doing the
deprecating.
01.5 The Moderation Override
Covenant AI lost moderation control of its own community channels. We have since
spoken with operators of three other subnets who experienced the same thing — admin
rights silently removed, channel ownership transferred to accounts under foundation
control, message history pruned. None of them received a written explanation. All
three describe it the same way: "It happened the day after I pushed back."
We name them, on the record, in the leaks section.
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Sources & Methodology
Every document on this site has been independently verified by at least two of the
following: cryptographic signature matching known keys; EXIF and header analysis;
cross-reference with on-chain events; and corroboration from a second, unrelated
source. Documents that failed verification were excluded, even when the story was
tempting.
We are not anti-crypto. We are not short TAO. We have no position. We are publishing
because the gap between the pitch and the reality has become too wide to ignore.