Two Days in Montreal Show Where Bittensor Is Heading Next

Exploit Summit wrapped up in Montreal on September 29, closing two days of demos, pitches, technical debates, and product updates from across the Bittensor ecosystem.

The second and final day at New City Gas felt especially practical. Across both the OTF and Rao stages, the focus moved toward working products, better incentive design, research infrastructure, and stronger business models.

Carbon also delivered one of the day’s biggest moments by winning Pitchtensor and securing 500 TAO.

OTF Stage Focuses on Gamma, Research and Better Incentives

The OTF stage opened with a deeper discussion around the Gamma proposal. Jacob ‘Const’ Steeve and Keith Singery explored how subnets could buy services from one another on-chain, including compute, while keeping costs more predictable.

Pitchtensor, a machine learning track by Bitstarter, followed with Carbon taking the top spot and securing 500 TAO after a round that lasted just under 20 minutes.

Carbon Wins Pitchtensor 2026 With 500 TAO Raised in Under 20 Minutes

Research also featured heavily. Minos (SN107) announced limited Minos Studio access for approved academic researchers and demonstrated an agent-driven research loop that can run on a Mac and be controlled remotely from an iPhone.

Other OTF highlights included:

1. 404—GEN (SN17) discussing game-jam winners and creator monetization.

Describe a Game. 404-Gen (SN17) Builds the 3D World, Tests It, and Critiques It

2. Will Squires and Marcus Graichen debating how emissions can better support useful businesses and research.

3. Toufic Adlouni of Renno Law Firm breaking down the practical levers available to subnet participants.

4. John Yu of Bitsec (SN50) reviewing incentive findings from Ditto AI.

5. Jon Durbin of Chutes (SN64) discussing conviction lock and the engineering work behind incentive changes.

Rao Stage Turns Toward Products and Founders

The Rao stage leaned more into founders, infrastructure, and live product demos. An incubator panel featuring Yuma Group, Crucible Labs, and Bitstarter discussed what they look for in teams, with adaptability emerging as a key theme.

Several builders also showed working products on stage:

1. Jose Caldera demonstrated Yanez Gate and Pulse controlling an AI agent’s spending limits.

Yanez Pulse and Gate Give AI Agents Autonomy Without Giving Up Human Control

2. Will O’Brien presented Provenonce (SN87)’s first Bittensor testnet cycle and observatory.

3. Yuma Group introduced ASMR, a proposal around subnet liquidity.

4. Cameron Wang shared more on the hardware and data model behind OpenRoboto (SN80) Shift.

5. Isabella Liu of Connito (SN120) demonstrated turning training requests into reusable experts.

The stage also brought several product and partnership updates. Pareton (SN10) and Engy (SN53) shared work around inference optimization, Reliquary (SN81) opened early access for post-training, Beam (SN105) launched new developer tools, Vidaio (SN85) introduced multilingual streaming support, and Ditto (SN118) shared Ditto V2.

Josh Riddett of Green Compute (SN110) also announced another $4 million data centre planned for the end of October.

Exploit Summit Ends With More Focus on What Works

Exploit Summit’s final day showed a Bittensor ecosystem becoming more focused on usable products, stronger research tools, clearer incentives, and sustainable businesses.

From Carbon’s Pitchtensor win and the deeper Gamma discussion to new demos, product launches, and infrastructure announcements, the summit closed with more of the network moving from ideas toward execution.

After two days of debates, demos, pitches, and conversations, Exploit Summit Montreal came to an end with plenty still being built.

➛ Catch up on what happened on day 1:

Not in Montreal for Exploit Summit? Here’s What You Missed on Day One