$TAO is up +27% in 7 days while most of the market bleeds. When the noise fades, you start to see what’s actually happening around Bittensor: 1/ $TAO Listing on Upbit The listing on Upbit (the largest Korean exchange) wasn’t just another CEX event. Korean markets are momentum-driven and liquidity-sensitive. Volume expanded and TAO decoupled while BTC bled. 2/ Institutional Positioning Is Moving From Narrative → Infrastructure • Barry Silbert is openly positioning around Bittensor • DCG is deploying capital into decentralized AI • Yuma is focused specifically on the ecosystem At the same time: • Grayscale filed an S-1 (GTAO) • Bitwise filed for a TAO Strategy ETF • BitGo is providing institutional custody 3/ Governance Is Entering Its Stress-Test Phase The CEO structure is gone. Governance now runs via: • A proposal layer (Triumvirate) • Senate voting (top delegates) • Majority execution If Q1 plans hold, governance moves further toward stake-weighted decentralization. 4/ Marketing & Ecosystem Data Subnet data: There are 128 active $TAO subnets, with ~$5B total FDV and 18%+ of $TAO already locked inside subnets. $TAO staking conditions: 67%+ of the circulating supply is staked (5.34M at Root and 1.92M at Subnets). Total issuance exceeds 10.68M $TAO. Largest active contributors by views over the last 90 days: @CryptoWizardd, @AltcoinDaily, @LLuciano_BTC, @DamiDefi, @MizerXBT, @BarrySilbert, @CryptoMichNL 5/ My Take A month ago, my thesis was: Post-halving = Darwinian pressure on subnets and that hasn’t changed. What has changed: Capital is starting to recognize the tightening supply, institutional rails, and structural governance shift. TAO doesn’t win because of filings. It wins if: • Subnets generate real flows • Governance remains functional • Capital sees durable AI infrastructure The next 2–3 months will be decisive. If subnet-level value compounds, this becomes structural. If not, it remains cyclical. Right now? It’s one of the few AI plays showing strength while the rest of the market bleeds.

Data from: @taoapp_, @protokols_io and @taostats