Bittensor Just Made Subnet Takeovers Much Harder

If you own a subnet on Bittensor, you can sleep easier tonight, because this week’s upgrade has made takeovers through the conviction mechanism significantly harder.

The change corrects a previous update that lowered the cost of taking over a subnet, making the network more vulnerable than intended.

In plain English, the new rules raise the takeover threshold across most subnets, with the 18% figure chosen to restore a stronger layer of protection.

Here’s what is changing, why 18% was selected, and what every subnet owner should do now to prepare for the upgrade.

A Quick Refresher on What Conviction Is

Conviction lets people signal serious long-term commitment to a subnet by locking up alpha tokens.

The Joint Analysis That Could Reshape Conviction Before Its Next Layer Ships

1. Built as an escape hatch for the network: If a subnet owner truly abandons their subnet, someone else can take it over by holding enough locked conviction to prove they are the more committed party.

2. Meant to protect against ghost subnets: The mechanism keeps neglected subnets from sitting dead while committed builders wait.

3. Not designed as a hostile takeover tool: The rules are intentionally slow and expensive so that only genuine, majority-scale commitment can win a subnet away from its current owner.

What Just Changed

Two specific things changed with this week’s upgrade, both aimed at making takeovers harder to game.

1. Only one wallet counts now: Previously the takeover threshold added up conviction from many different lockers, including the owner’s own defensive locks. A challenger could win with a small personal position simply because unrelated people happened to push the total over the line.

2. The winning wallet must clear the bar alone: All the conviction that counts toward a takeover has to sit on one hotkey. Coalitions still work, but backers have to lock toward the same challenger wallet rather than spreading conviction around.

3. The threshold moved from 10% to 18%: A challenger now needs considerably more conviction to take a subnet, holding more than 18% of its eligible alpha as matured conviction in a single wallet.

Why 18% Specifically

The number is not random and carries a clean economic logic.

1. 18% is already the owner’s cut of emissions: The share of a subnet’s emissions paid to its owner every cycle is 18%. Matching the takeover threshold to that reward means whoever wants to earn 18% of emissions must first hold 18% of the subnet in matured conviction.

2. The old 10% number had no economic anchor: It left the door open to takeovers that felt disproportionate to what the winner was acquiring.

3. Owner locks mature instantly while challenger locks take about 43 days: An owner watching their subnet can always top up before a challenge matures, giving defenders a natural advantage.

What the Numbers Say

The Bittensor team ran real market pricing on 88 mainnet subnets past the one-year age gate, comparing takeover costs under three rule sets.

1. Median cost roughly doubles compared to the pre-v446 baseline.

2. Subnets takeable for under 1,000 $TAO drop from 23 to 5.

3. On 21 subnets, the required 18% position cannot even be assembled from the pool at any price. The market simply does not have that much alpha for sale.

4. Every mainnet subnet past the age gate has its current owner as the conviction leader today. No challenger currently leads anywhere close to the 18% threshold.

The Owner’s Playbook

For your subnet to change hands, four things must now happen at once. If any one breaks, the challenge ends.

1. The subnet must be at least one year old.

2. A single wallet must hold more than 18% of eligible alpha in matured conviction.

3. Maturity has to run its full 43-day course while visible on-chain the entire time.

4. The challenger must out-hold you at every point along the way.

The hint is to keep more conviction locked on your owner’s wallet than any potential challenger holds. If you notice someone growing their position, refresh your conviction early so your lead remains firmly protected.

Because your locks mature instantly while theirs take 43 days, defending your subnet is significantly easier than attacking it. The community can still take over a genuinely neglected subnet, but a small position getting lucky is no longer enough.

➛ Read the Original Release on Conviction Normalization Upgrade Here.