Mogmachine and Const Deeps Dive Into Taoflow and dTAO

By: School of Crypto

Bittensor is entering a fundamentally different era where emissions, price, miner incentives, and subnet sustainability are governed less by fixed schedules and more by real economic flow.

In a recent X Spaces hosted by Mog and Jake, the duo unpacked what Taoflow and the new dTAO mechanics truly mean for subnet owners, tokenholders, and miners. Their conversation revealed a paradigm shift:

• Emissions no longer determine price.
• Flow (net TAO buying/selling) is the new king.
• Wastage is deadly. Efficiency is mandatory.

This article synthesizes the full discussion, breaking down the mechanics, implications, and the operational transformation now required across the Bittensor ecosystem.

1. Pre-dTAO: A System Stuck in Slow Motion

Mog opened the conversation by revisiting the pre-dTAO era. The problem was simple:

Liquidity routing was inefficient.

Older subnets had deep pools, making it harder for price to be impacted, even when downward pressure existed. Newer subnets, like the early Subnet 85, struggled to build liquidity fast enough to matter.

Validators controlled emissions too rigidly.

Emissions moved slowly and required weeks of social coordination to redirect. Subnets that should’ve been starved continued receiving incentives. Subnets with traction waited in line.

Narrative, not economics, dictated attention.

Each new subnet came with its own story, but because liquidity was thin and risky, it took enormous effort for a new narrative to break through.

dTAO was created to solve all of this, and it did. But it introduced new challenges.

2. Taoflow Metrics: Flow, Not Emissions, Now Drives Reality

Mog highlighted that anyone can now track flow on taostats.io/subnets, observing TAO movement over:

• 24 hours
• 7 days
• 30 days

This data shows exactly how much TAO is entering or leaving a subnet’s LP. The implications are crucial:

• If more TAO is sold than bought → flow negative → emissions drop.
• If more TAO is bought than sold → flow positive → emissions rise.

Crucially:

A subnet with zero trading can see emissions fall to zero… but its price stays the same until actual buyers or sellers show up.

This is a total departure from the previous model where emissions ratios set expectations for price.

3. Const’s Breakdown of the New Mechanics: The Chain as Buyer of Last Resort

Const explained the heart of the new system.

In dTAO, emissions are injected as liquidity, not buys.

Instead of the chain buying/selling alpha, it pairs emissions with their equivalent TAO value and injects liquidity directly into the subnet’s pool.

But something special happens when emissions > price.

Example:

• Emission: 2%
• Price: equivalent to 1% TAO

Injecting liquidity would require more than 1 alpha → which breaks the emission schedule.

Solution: the chain buys alpha directly. This creates real buy pressure, not neutral liquidity.

This effect becomes extreme when total subnet prices drop below 1 TAO — the “singularity point” Mog referenced when the chain became a buyer of last resort.

Key Revelation:

• Price is now a function of flow, not of emissions.
• Emissions follow flow.
• Price follows flow.
• The connection between emissions → price is broken.

4. Why Some Subnets Are “Subsidized” by the Chain

Mog mentioned that Chutes has:

• 8% emissions share
• 6% price share

While Ridges has:

• ~5% emissions
• ~5.8% price

How?

Const clarified:

• If emissions > price share → the chain subsidizes you by buying your alpha.
• If emissions < price → the chain injects neutral liquidity.

This makes emissions a powerful target.

If a subnet wins emissions, the chain will often step in to support its price upward.

This is why chasing emissions is now strategically valuable. And why sloppy subnets are about to get wiped out.

5. The New Operating Model: Wastage Is Death

Mog then shifted the conversation toward subnet operations.

Emissions are no longer “free money.”

They are:

• your runway,
• your team budget,
• your infrastructure cap,
• your miner compensation ceiling,
• your marketing budget,
• your economic foundation.

But the days of careless spending are over.

He was shocked to find 85 subnets are burning significantly.

80 of them are burning over 50%.**

Many subnets haven’t adapted.

Low-infrastructure subnets already throttled miner rewards because:

• it was wasteful
• miners would just dump
• emissions needed to be preserved

GPU-heavy or research-heavy subnets? They didn’t adapt and are now being forced into economic discipline.

Subnets are now businesses. Miners are suppliers.

And when your backer stops funding you, you must operate sustainably. Wastage is no longer survivable.

6. Burn, Recycle, or Treasury? The AlphaToken Dilemma

Subnets now face a critical question:

What should be done with miner-emitted alpha?

• Burn it?
• Recycle it back into operations?
• Add it to the LP?
• Redirect it to stakers?

Mog shared a conversation with his Hippius subnet team where someone suggested giving miner emissions to stakers.

His response was blunt: That’s terrible.

Because:

• It’s not backed by revenue
• It inflates sell pressure
• It destabilizes flow
• It creates artificial yields that collapse later

The correct model is simple:

**Outflow must match inflow. No more, no less.**

A subnet must be sustainable and not dependent on leakage, burns, or artificial boosts.

7. Taostats Will Soon Add Net Flow Analysis

Finally, Mog revealed that taostats will introduce new metrics:

• net positive/negative flow
• flow-adjusted efficiency
• subnet sustainability tracking

This will be a game-changer for:

• investors
• teams
• miners
• analysts
• validators

It will expose who is:

• mismanaging capital
• overpaying miners
• bleeding emissions
• operating sustainably
• efficiently using TAO inflow

And it will force subnet owners to adopt real economics.

Conclusion: A New Paradigm for $TAO

This X Spaces was one of the most illuminating discussions since dTAO went live. The Bittensor ecosystem is transitioning from:

→ narrative-driven emissions
→ to flow-driven economics
→ to efficiency-driven sustainability
→ to a market where subnets must behave like real businesses.

The subnets that survive will be those that:

• maintain positive flow
• eliminate wastage
• balance miner incentives
• build real demand
• operate sustainably
• understand the mechanics deeply

This is the new age of TAO.

Listen to the full X Spaces here.