Bittensor (TAO) Crashes 20% Following Covenant AI’s Exit, ‘Decentralization Theater’ Claims

Subnet developer Covenant AI announced its exit from Bittensor due to decentralization concerns and alleged punitive actions by the AI-focused network ecosystem co-founder, Jacob Steeves.

On Friday, Covenant AI’s founder, Sam Dare, released a statement announcing the subnet developer’s departure from decentralized artificial intelligence network Bittensor, citing governance disputes and decentralization concerns.

“We cannot in good conscience continue to build on a network where the foundational claim we make to our investors, that this infrastructure is decentralized and permissionless, is contradicted by the reality of how the network is actually governed,” Dare wrote, calling Bittensor a “decentralized theater.”

For context, Covenant AI was one of Bittensor’s most prominent contributors, operating three subnets: Templar (SN3), Basilica (SN39), and Grail (SN81). As reported by NewsBTC, the team’s Covenant-72B model, which was acknowledged by NVIDIA’s CEO and cited by Anthropic’s co-founder, recently triggered a significant rally for TAO’s price.

In the statement, Covenant AI’s founder argued that Bittensor’s alleged decentralization problem “runs deeper than any single incident,” affirming that the network actually has “centralized control with decentralized branding.”

He claimed that Bittensor’s founder, Jacob Steeves, also known as Const, maintains effective control over the triumvirate structure the network operates on, “resists any meaningful transfer of authority, and deploys changes unilaterally whenever he chooses, without process and without consensus.”

In addition, Dare alleged that Steeves took a series of actions against Covenant AI’s operations over the past few weeks, including suspending emissions to its subnets, overriding moderation capabilities over its community channels, publicly deprecating the subnet infrastructure, and applying “direct economic pressure” through strategically timed token sales.

Steeves quickly responded to the allegations, denying Dare’s claims in an X post. First, the Bittensor founder addressed the suspending emissions argument, affirming that he doesn’t have that ability but sold some of his alpha holdings on the three subnets, as “they were not running, and were on near 100% burn code.”

“This changed the emission in the same way all buys and sells on Bittensor do. I don’t have any privilege beyond what normal TAO holders have,” he stated.

Regarding the deprecation and removal of moderation rights, Steeves argued that Dare “specifically deprecated his own channels,” particularly the Discord channel, and repeatedly deleted posts of “genuine, honest criticism.”

As a result, he claims to have “removed that ability temporarily and then reinstated it later,” but did not remove his moderator role. “I simply stopped him from deleting posts from others in his channels.”

Alex DRocks, a Bittensor community member and participant of the Discord channels, backed some of Steeves’ counterclaims. “I saw the legit post deletions in real-time and also the bittensor discord channels being deprecated by Sam (Covenant owner) too. Everything Const said above checks out,” he wrote in an X thread.

“The deleted posts were critiques about sn39 redoing exactly what another compute subnet is doing while they had shilled about innovating and doing better than others. (…) What this proves is that Sam Dare couldn’t handle a simple question without deleting the messages,” DRocks continued.

Lastly, Steeves denied making “large visible token sales” to apply economic pressure, affirming that he has sold less than 1% of what he had invested in Covenant AI’s teams.

Amid the controversy, Bittensor saw its token, TAO, crash 25% from the $340 area to a multi-week low of $250 before bouncing toward the $260 level. Analyst Ardi noted that 24 hours before the Covenant AI’s news dropped, TAO’s sell volume hit its highest level since December 2024.

“If you think that’s a coincidence, you don’t understand the game you’re playing. This was a calculated exit and execution,” he stated, explaining that larger wallets that knew beforehand “were unloading into the breakout attempt yesterday, using that strength to nuke millions in size well before the headline hit the market.”

Meanwhile, retail-sized wallets had to absorb the pressure, competing for an exit at 20% lower. The analyst pointed out that TAO was in an “accumulation continuation phase” following its recent breakout, but warned that “the chart is going to have a difficult time absorbing 18-month high sell volume when it’s right at a key support level.”