TNS Is Shutting Down. Here’s How Holders Migrate

Bittensor just lost a name service and consolidated around a single one. On June 15, TAO Domains announced it’s winding down TAO Name Service (TNS) and handing the baton to NameTensor.

A day later, NameTensor opened a discounted migration program to catch the orphaned holders. This means the ecosystem now has one canonical, fully on-chain .tao identity layer instead of two competing ones.

If you hold a .tao domain through TNS, this affects your wallet directly. Here’s what you need to know.

Why .tao names exist at all

Bittensor runs on 48-character SS58 addresses, the kind of string that’s one paste away from sending TAO into the void, and a sitting duck for clipboard malware that swaps your destination address mid-copy.

Name services fix this the way ENS did for Ethereum: register satoshi.tao, point it at your wallet, and get a wallet address a human can read and verify.

How it played out

• June 15: TAO Domains announces TNS shutdown, cites an agreement with NameTensor to migrate eligible holders at a discount.
• June 16: NameTensor opens the migration program.
• June 17: TAO Domains updates its bio to point users at migration and confirms the account will no longer be actively maintained.

What you’ll pay to migrate

Eligible TNS holders can claim the same name on nametensor.io at a discount scaled to length. Shorter names are scarcer, so the discount decreases as the name gets shorter:

The program is permanent and unlimited per wallet. Hold ten TNS names? Migrate all ten.

The three-step process:

1. Connect the Bittensor wallet holding your TNS domain(s) at nametensor.io. Eligible names show up automatically with a migration badge.
2. Open the TNS Migration dashboard. There, the discounted price calculates itself.
3. Sign the on-chain registration.

Read more about Nametensor below:

Keep these in mind

You should be mindful of the few points below:

• If someone already grabbed your name on NameTensor, you’re out of luck. It’s not eligible for the migration discount, and NameTensor won’t reassign it. First-come ownership stands.
• Already registered the same name on NameTensor yourself? Don’t pay twice. You’re already covered, and no migration is needed.
• NameTensor won’t refund your TNS purchase. It’s an independent project and has no hand in what you paid TAO Domains. Refund questions go to the TNS team directly.

More to come from Nametensor

NameTensor is pitching itself as “the identity layer for Bittensor.” The project goes beyond name registry to other services like tipping through tools (TIP_TAO) and a roadmap covering wallet and dApp integrations, a transfer marketplace, and web2 interoperability.

The headline structural change versus older models: permanent ownership, no renewals, no expiration, all verifiable on Subtensor. No annual rent on your own identity.

Migration is live now at nametensor.io.