Staking now plays a principal role in the functioning of the Bittensor network. The principal goal of dTao is to divide chain emissions amongst subnets in a democratic way.

Subnet emission

Emission into a subnet is determined by the amount of tao in the Subnet Pool. The principal addition of tao into the pool is via staking actions. Therefore subnet emission is guided by how much stake has been placed on the subnet.

Staking Options

in dTao, there are two options for staking:

• Staking to root
• Staking to a Subnet

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Staking actions now have a fee

All staking actions will incur a 500,000 rao (0.0005 tao) fee. Moving stake from one validator to another incurs 2 fees.

Emission division: root to subnet

Stakeholder emission is split between these two options. For new subnets, the emission is primarily to root, with subnet increasing over time

This change over time is described in Emissions: Root vs. Alpha Stake.

Staking to root

The default action of staking to root is similar to what staking was pre-dTao. All your earnings on each subnet are converted to tao and autocompound on root. The default staking method on root is called root stake.

As seen in the section above, the initial emissions will be the same, but over time the staking to root returns will decrease (eventually reaching ~ 18% of original staking rewards).

If you have staked to root, your retruns will be autocompunded to your hotkey on root.

Staking to alpha

This is the new feature and primary goal of dTao - to enable stakeholders to vote and determine the emissions for every subnet.

To stake in alpha, tao is exchanged via the Subnet Pools into alpha. This will incur Slippage. The received alpha is then staked to the validator selected.

dTao FAQ: Your top staking questions