Crypto carried a strange energy in 2021. Prices soared, timelines were loud, and everyone seemed convinced the digital world was evolving overnight. The truth felt different behind the scenes. Trust was bleeding out of the industry at record speed. Fraudsters walked away with $14 billion through rug pulls, Ponzi setups, and clever stories packaged as innovation. The crash not only erased portfolios, it also erased confidence.
A Bittensor commentator known as Andy ττ on X speaks openly about this history and the damage it caused. His commentary also talks about what Bittensor (TAO) might offer as a response to everything that went wrong. His threads blend the past and the possibility of something different from Bittensor.
The reason discussions around Bittensor keep growing is not because of hype. The conversation shifts since its structure breaks from the patterns that wrecked trust in 2021. The Bittensor token called TAO sits at the center of a network designed for machine intelligence. The focus is not speculation. The focus is AI services with real customers and measurable output.
Andy ττ returns to this point across his page. He repeats that Bittensor does not resemble the 2021 playbook. Money does not enter the system through retail excitement. Money enters through enterprises, developers, and teams paying for AI workloads. That revenue flows back into subnet economies that depend on the Bittensor token.
TAO price often becomes a reference point during discussions, not as a promise, but as a reflection of network activity. People ask about Bittensor price because they want to understand whether demand for intelligence is translating into demand for compute.
Why I keep talking about $TAO.
— Andy ττ (@bittingthembits) December 3, 2025
Real talk. 2021 did not shake out weak hands.
It robbed people blind and burned trust to the ground.
14 billion dollars stolen in 2021 alone.
2.8 billion of that was rug pulls.
46,000 plus reported victims to the FTC.
Over 1 billion in… pic.twitter.com/Iu1a5vQOso
Real-World Revenue Instead of Digital Promises
Bittensor runs on subnets built by independent teams. Each subnet offers a useful AI service that customers can pay for. That is where the difference appears strongest. 2021 projects sold dreams. These teams are selling computation.
Andy ττ uses Targon as an example. Targon, known as Subnet 4, serves enterprise inference at scale. It operates with tens of millions of dollars in Nvidia hardware and brings in over $10M a year from customers using the system. That is a functional business, not a teaser trailer.
Chutes builds serverless compute that mirrors cloud infrastructure. Celium generated more than $1M within months. Ridges pushes coding accuracy near frontier models. Dippy runs with millions of users already in production.
These are not sketches on a roadmap. These are live systems delivering output without theatrical promises. Crypto during 2021 often announced metaverses that never materialized. Bittensor teams deliver AI products that exist today.
Why the Bittensor Token Design Matters
Supply transparency plays a major role in the conversation. The Bittensor token uses a hard cap of 21M TAO. The number never changes. The simplicity of that model appeals to those who felt burned by hidden emissions or unlimited mint structures used to drain value in earlier eras.
Andy ττ stresses that TAO is not positioned as a collectible. It is positioned as a scarce base asset beneath a network that produces something tangible. Subnets provide intelligence. Intelligence generates revenue. That revenue supports subnet tokens and compute demand. TAO connects the entire ecosystem.
This is the opposite of the 2021 cycle where tokens relied on hype to generate buying pressure. Bittensor relies on usage.
Why the Comparison to 2021 Feels Inevitable
People still carry scars from the past cycle. Many hear about a new project and assume the pattern is about to repeat. That assumption makes sense. They lived through a moment where emotions were weaponized.
Andy ττ argues that the question should shift. Instead of asking what the next meme is, ask which systems produce something valuable. Ask who is paying. Ask where money flows. Ask if the core token serves a real function or only a trading chart.
These questions define whether the industry moves forward. They also explain why conversations around the Bittensor token and TAO price continue to grow. The interest does not come from hype. It comes from the possibility that a crypto network can finally offer something more grounded than speculation.
Bittensor aims to build decentralized intelligence at global scale. Models train, share value, and compete through incentives structured around the TAO token. Every piece of the network exists for AI output rather than trend cycles.