Sustainable Subnets Outperform Brute Force. The TaoHash pivot proves that sound, trustless economics—like a subsidized pool fee model—are superior to naive, high-emission designs. Viability trumps hype.
Targeting Grand Challenges, Not Just Scale. The HONE subnet is a targeted strike against a specific AGI benchmark where today’s massive models fail. This signals a strategic shift from simply training bigger LLMs to pioneering novel AI architectures.
Infrastructure Is the Foundation of Innovation. The success of the entire Bittensor network hinges on the unglamorous but essential work of teams like Latent Holdings, who build and maintain the core tooling that empowers all other developers.
Antitrust is a moat for incumbents. By blocking M&A exits, regulators inadvertently protect big tech. They starve the startup ecosystem of the very capital that would fund the next generation of piranhas aiming to disrupt them.
US AI dominance is not guaranteed. A perfect storm is brewing: domestic attacks via copyright lawsuits and energy constraints, combined with the strategic release of high-quality, open models from China, threatens to commoditize America’s lead.
Go on offense with jurisdictional competition. Instead of playing defense in DC, the tech industry’s best move is to treat the US federal government as a monopoly and create competition. Proactively find and build in global jurisdictions that offer "speed of physics, not permits."
Incentives are the ultimate hyperparameter. Gradients’ success proves that a well-designed, winner-take-all economic model can motivate a decentralized network to collectively out-innovate the world's biggest tech companies in complex tasks like AI fine-tuning.
Open-sourcing the "secret sauce" is the path to enterprise trust. The shift to Gradients 5.0 directly tackles enterprise data privacy concerns by making the training process transparent and verifiable, paving the way for mainstream adoption and the creation of a best-in-class open-source AutoML script.
The future of AI is composable and decentralized. The end goal is to stack specialized subnets—like Shoots for compute and Gradients for training—to build a vertically integrated AI that is more powerful, transparent, and accessible than anything built by a single corporation.
AI Activates Dormant Data. Governments and corporations sit on oceans of data. AI gives them the key to instantly turn this raw information into invasive, comprehensive profiles.
Decentralized AI Is a Business Imperative. The demand for privacy is a core requirement for enterprises in finance and healthcare that cannot risk sending proprietary data to centralized AI providers.
Tokens Secure the System. In open AI networks, tokens are a critical governance tool. They use economic incentives like staking and slashing to enforce honest participation and secure the system against attacks.
The Endgame is Financial Repression. All policy roads lead to currency dilution. The government will sacrifice real returns and price stability to finance its deficits and rescue failing pension systems.
Invest in the Off-Ramp. The depression in assets like commercial real estate forces capital into "long volatility" assets like tech, AI, and crypto. This bifurcation explains the market's seemingly irrational rally.
Brace for a Liquidity Minefield. September poses a significant risk as the Treasury issues massive debt without the Fed's RRP safety net. This, combined with a potential Supreme Court ruling on tariffs, creates a volatile cocktail for markets.
Architecture is the new frontier. The move to a "Mixture of Models" is the real story of GPT-5. It’s the blueprint for future multi-agent systems, where coordination, not just raw power, is the key differentiator.
The application layer is the battleground. As foundational models become a commodity, the fight for market dominance will move up the stack. Expect AI giants to build integrated, all-in-one agents, threatening to absorb the niche currently occupied by smaller startups.
Ecosystems are becoming walled gardens. The uneasy truce between Big Tech platforms is fragile. Prepare for strategic "deplatforming" as companies like Google leverage their control over data and integrations (Gmail, Drive) to sideline competitors and favor their native AI.
**Sustainable Economics Trump Naive Subsidies.** Taoash’s pivot proves that simply wrapping a commodity in TAO isn't enough. Successful subnets require robust, self-sustaining economic loops that align incentives by returning primary value (BTC) directly to producers.
**The New Frontier is Niche & Nimble.** Subnet 5 (Hone) is betting against sheer scale. By targeting a specific, difficult benchmark (ARC-AGI-2) with smaller, more efficient models, it aims to deliver a step-function AI breakthrough without the astronomical cost of frontier labs.
**Invest in Measurable Missions.** Both subnets have quantifiable goals. Taoash targets a competitive net pool fee and a NiceHash-style marketplace. Hone is focused on winning the ARC-AGI-2 prize. This shift from vague roadmaps to falsifiable objectives is a defining feature of the network's next phase.
**Sustainable Economics Win:** TaoHash's initial model failed because it tried to use an inefficient token subsidy to capture a hyper-efficient market (Bitcoin mining). The successful pivot was to act like a standard pool and use its token as a *value-add* subsidy, not a revenue replacement.
**Architecture Over Brute Force:** Subnet 5 is a bet that the next leap in AI will come from architectural innovation, not just throwing more parameters at the problem. By focusing on hierarchical models, it aims to build smaller, smarter systems that can out-reason massive LLMs on complex tasks.
**Benchmarks Ground Innovation:** A clear, difficult, and measurable goal like solving ARC-AGI-2 focuses the network's energy. It transforms a vague mission ("build AGI") into a concrete engineering problem, allowing for rapid, cost-effective iteration and a clear definition of success.
From Prompts to Projects. The focus is shifting from single-shot answers to long-running, asynchronous tasks. The willingness of users to wait for high-quality output unlocks complex use cases, turning AI from a chatbot into a digital chief of staff.
Data is the New Oil, Again. With learning algorithms becoming hyper-efficient, the primary bottleneck is no longer compute or architecture, but the creation of high-quality, task-specific data and realistic reinforcement learning environments.
Taste is the Ultimate Differentiator. As AI becomes a commodity, the ability to define a problem with simplicity and elegance—"good taste"—is the most valuable, non-commoditizable skill in AI development.
Distribution is the New Kingmaker. Protocols with significant user bases and transaction volume (like Hyperliquid) now have the leverage to command value from stablecoin issuers and other service providers, not the other way around.
The Stablecoin Revenue Model is Broken. The era of stablecoin issuers keeping 100% of the yield from reserves is over. Expect a race to the bottom on revenue sharing, forcing issuers to innovate on product rather than just collecting yield.
The Crypto IPO Window is Wide Open. With Figure’s successful public offering and Gemini’s upcoming listing, public markets are showing a strong appetite for crypto-native businesses, likely triggering a wave of IPOs from companies like Kraken, BitGo, and others.
**Consolidate or Compete.** Sub-subnets allow teams to build diversified businesses under a single token, while deregistration means underperforming projects will be pruned. The message is clear: innovate and perform, or be replaced.
**Investment Thesis Evolves.** Subnet tokens are no longer "eternal." Deregistration fundamentally changes the risk profile, making active development and market traction paramount for long-term viability.
**Governance is Coming.** The network is on a clear path to decentralization. The planned shift to Proof-of-Stake and a more democratic governance structure will steadily transfer power to subnet owners and stakers, making community participation more critical than ever.
Global liquidity is the ultimate macro signal. As long as the global liquidity chart goes up and to the right, the crypto bull market has the fuel it needs to continue its run.
Ethereum isn't losing; it's quietly winning the RWA war. With 93% market share, Ethereum has become the de facto settlement layer for tokenized real-world assets, a lead that continues to grow as institutions like Fidelity build directly on its L1.
The new blockchain business model is asset management. Chains like Hyperliquid and Mega ETH are pioneering a shift away from relying solely on blockspace fees. By integrating native stablecoins, they are capturing a percentage of the yield from assets on-chain, effectively turning the protocol itself into a revenue-generating asset manager.
LSTs Are a Distribution Play: For protocols, launching an LST is less about staking yield and more about attracting SOL to gain a strategic advantage in securing blockspace and landing transactions.
Infrastructure Follows the User: Sanctum's pivot to transaction services was not a top-down mandate but a direct response to the needs of its largest partners, proving that the most durable infrastructure is built by solving the immediate, pressing problems of your customers.
Aggregation Is King: Just as Jupiter won by aggregating DEXs for users, Sanctum’s Gateway aims to win by aggregating fragmented transaction delivery networks for developers, creating a simpler and more efficient experience.
Patience is Your Superpower. This cycle rewards thesis-driven investing over hyperactive trading. Identify assets with strong value, momentum, and fundamentals, and give them time to play out.
Bet on the On-Chain Casino. The gambling economy is real, profitable, and growing. Look for platforms that facilitate high-asymmetry games (memecoins, raffles) as they capture a powerful cultural trend.
Find Alpha in the Illiquid. The next frontier is tokenizing real-world value. Platforms creating liquid markets for previously stuck assets—from collectibles to crime—are building foundational infrastructure for a much larger on-chain world.
Revenue Accrual is King. Hyperliquid's model of directing nearly all top-line revenue to token buybacks creates an aggressive and constant bid for the HYPE token, a feature most crypto projects can only dream of.
Product-First Beats VC-First. Its explosive growth comes from building a superior product that attracted a loyal user base first, then leveraging that traction to build an L1 ecosystem—a stark contrast to the typical VC-funded playbook.
A Bet on the Middle Ground. Investing in HYPE is a bet that CEX-level performance and on-chain transparency can outweigh significant centralization and regulatory risks. It’s a category-defining play that sits squarely between DeFi and CeFi.
