Bittensor acknowledges centralization: full network decentralization will take a year and a half
Jacob Steeves, founder of Bittensor, made an unexpected admission: at the current stage, the project cannot be considered a fully decentralized protocol. The reason is the need to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence technologies, where speed and flexibility are crucial.
Steeves drew a clear distinction between Bittensor and, for example, Bitcoin. While Bitcoin was originally designed as a system resistant to external control, Bittensor is in a phase of active development. Currently, key decisions are made by a narrow group of engineers, allowing for rapid protocol changes and bug fixes without getting bogged down in the bureaucratic procedures of "democratic" governance.
Three Community Groups and an Action Plan
The founder divided the community into three categories. For technically unsophisticated supporters, he promised to publish detailed explanations for each update. The team is already working directly with developers. However, Steeves intends to ignore the opinions of "critics and fraudsters" who, according to him, use decentralization slogans to block updates.
At the same time, he emphasized that at the level of ownership distribution, Bittensor is already decentralized: the project had no pre-mine, and 128 subnet teams are actively operating on the network.
Roadmap: From Short Positions to Governance Transfer
Plans for the next 18 months include launching short position mechanisms to protect against manipulation and introducing rights for alpha token holders. The key milestone is transferring network governance to the community. Steeves expects this to happen within a year and a half, once the core protocol mechanisms are fully refined.
As a reminder, Bittensor provides access to computing resources through an open global network without intermediaries, making it a significant player in the field of decentralized AI.
My analysis: Steeves' admission is a mature and pragmatic step. In a world where competition in AI is growing exponentially, sacrificing development speed for ideological purity would be a fatal mistake. A year and a half is a realistic timeframe to "harden" the protocol and transfer governance without risking its stability. The market will likely perceive this as a positive signal, indicating the team's strategic maturity.