Bittensor Governance Crisis: Covenant AI Abandons Network Amid Deception Accusations

The decentralized AI network Bittensor has been rocked by a high-profile departure and accusations of deception.

Sam Dare, founder of Covenant AI, published an exit letter accusing co-founder Jacob Steeves of running a network that only appears to be decentralized.

Dare's team had built the largest decentralized AI model in history on Bittensor, but after 31 days of celebrating their achievement, they left and sold 37,000 TAO tokens worth approximately $10.2 million on the open market.

The token price fell more than 20%, with over $10 million in long liquidations triggered, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Dare wrote that Bittensor's 'triumvirate' governance model is effectively controlled by one person and that Steeves had unilaterally suspended emissions to Covenant AI's subnets, cutting off their income.