Covenant AI Co-Founder Accuses Bittensor Founder of Centralized Control

The co-founder of Covenant AI, Sam Dare, has published an exit letter accusing Jacob Steeves, co-founder of Bittensor (TAO), of running a centralized network. The accusation is that Steeves unilaterally suspended emissions to Covenant AI's subnets, cutting off their income and orchestrating token sales during an internal dispute.

The team behind the largest decentralized AI model in history walked out of Bittensor 31 days after achieving this milestone. They trained a 72-billion-parameter AI model distributed across more than 70 independent computers worldwide, with no central data center or institutional backing.

Bittensor is a blockchain network designed to build an open market for artificial intelligence. It rewards contributors for producing and improving AI models, validators judge the quality of that work, and both are compensated in TAO tokens. The network operates through subnets, specialized mini-markets focused on distinct AI tasks.