Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Covenant AI Quits Bittensor Over Centralization Claims as TAO Falls

The split puts Bittensor’s decentralization claims under scrutiny.

Overview

  • TAO fell more than 15% to about $284 after the announcement, with later trades near $292, according to CoinGecko.
  • Covenant AI alleged founder Jacob Steeves suspended emissions to its subnets, removed its channel moderation, deprecated its infrastructure, and timed large token sales during disputes.
  • Bittensor’s founder countered that the changes will produce the first subnets that run headless as true commodities.
  • The team had previously built Covenant‑72B across 70+ distributed nodes with Apache‑licensed weights and a 67.1 MMLU score, a milestone that helped drive TAO’s roughly 90% March rally.
  • CoinCentral reported Covenant operated three major subnets and that founder Sam Dare sold about 37,000 TAO, adding direct selling pressure to the token.