Affine (Bittensor Subnet-120) Project Update

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• Bittensor's first halving and its effect on subnet economics. Bittensor executed its first halving on December 14, 2025, reducing daily TAO issuance from roughly 7,200 to 3,600 tokens 34. Because the halving reduces both "TAO in" and "Alpha in" to subnet liquidity pools, it can lead to thinner subnet liquidity and increases pressure on weaker subnets to sustain positive net inflows 4. For subnets like Affine, this dynamic raises the importance of demonstrating genuine, sustained demand rather than relying on emissions-driven incentives.
• The TaoFlow emission model reshapes subnet competition. The transition to the TaoFlow (TFlow) emission model removed the direct reliance on subnet token price for emissions, instead using an exponential moving average (EMA) of net staking flow to reward subnets . This design is intended to incentivize holding and punish sustained negative flow, forcing subnets to compete for real capital rather than price appreciation 4. A key design focus going forward is improving automated market makers (AMMs) using Balancer-style pools with asymmetrically provided liquidity to fix current subsidization conditions .
• Growing institutional and infrastructure interest in Bittensor subnets. Institutional interest in TAO and subnet-specific "Alpha" tokens is increasing, evidenced by reports from Grayscale and the emergence of TAO-related digital asset treasury companies 4. Separately, General TAO Ventures launched Project Rubicon to bridge Bittensor subnet tokens to the Base Layer 2 blockchain, enabling non-custodial liquid staking of subnet alpha tokens and creating tradable ERC-20 liquid staked assets (xAlpha) for DeFi use 6. This kind of infrastructure could improve liquidity access for subnets such as Affine without requiring holders to sell underlying assets 6.

Biggest Stories of 2025

• Bittensor v10.0.1 released. This release improved GitHub workflows, refactored the neuron and metagraph components, and fixed an edge case in MeV 7. (December 22, 2025)
• Bittensor's first halving executed. The halving reduced daily TAO emissions from approximately 7,200 to 3,600 tokens, a supply reduction widely viewed as a positive long-term catalyst for the network 34. (December 14, 2025)
• Project Rubicon launched. General TAO Ventures introduced a protocol to bridge Bittensor subnet tokens to Base using Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), initially supporting 17 subnets with roughly $300,000 in liquidity each 6. (November 19, 2025)
• Subtensor v3.2.15-347 released. This release included hotfixes related to subnet deregistration burn usage and TaoFlow calculation and tracking 8. (November 18, 2025)
• Bittensor mainnet upgrade completed. The upgrade introduced updates to flow emissions, root claim functionality, and integrated pallet-contracts with the Subtensor chain extension, among other changes 910. (November 4, 2025)
• Spec Version 326 upgrade completed. This upgrade changed the subnet registration mechanism from a lock cost to a burn cost and reset the subnet registration burn cost to 2,500 TAO to allow time for community adjustment 11. (October 7, 2025)
• Bittensor v9.11.0 and Subtensor v3.2.8-320 released. The SDK release added commitments data into the selective metagraph and introduced Subnet Mechanism logic 12, while the Subtensor release introduced rate-limiting for hyperparameter changes, renamed subsubnets to mechanisms, and added the Trim UIDs feature 13. (September 25, 2025)
• Subtensor v3.2.5 released. This release added a swap simulating RPC, switched the benchmark runner, and introduced a hybrid consensus node 14. (August 20, 2025)
• Subtensor v3.2.0 released and spec version 290 upgrade completed. The release enabled automatic benchmark weight updates, allowed subnet owners to change their subnet symbol and toggle proof-of-work registrations, and the corresponding runtime upgrade went live on mainnet 1516. (July 7, 2025)
• Bittensor mainnet upgrade completed. This upgrade introduced breaking changes for node operators, including a Polkadot SDK upgrade and additions to Uniswap V3 liquidity provider features 17. (July 7, 2025)
• Bittensor v9.7.0 released. This release added get_subnet_info, fixed a bug in get_next_epoch_start_block, and improved the end-to-end workflow skipping logic 18. (May 29, 2025)
• Bittensor v9.6.0 released. This release added the subtensor.is_subnet_active method and changed serve_axon to use the hotkey instead of the coldkey to sign extrinsics 19. (May 15, 2025)
• Bittensor v9.5.0 released. This release added the SelectiveMetagraph interface into the SDK and added methods to the Async/Subtensor class 20. (May 12, 2025)
• Subtensor v2.0.2 released. This release used SubnetOwnerHotkey for neuron replace/prune checks and fixed the modify SN creator hotkey immunity 21. (February 16, 2025)
• Subtensor v2.0.0 released. This release added a global minimum burn and migration, removed the dynamic fee pallet, and applied a critical security update 22. (February 13, 2025)
• Subtensor v1.2.4 released. This release incremented the spec version to 218 and included a fix for commits on exact epochs 23. (January 8, 2025)