Subnet Directory

With the amount of new subnets being added it can be hard to get up to date information across all subnets, so data may be slightly out of date from time to time

Subnet 93

Bitcast

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ABOUT

What exactly does it do?

Bitcast is a decentralized platform built on Bittensor that incentivizes content creators (such as YouTube influencers) to produce brand-related content in exchange for crypto rewards. In essence, Bitcast connects brands with audiences through a network of creators, using Bittensor’s blockchain-based incentive mechanisms. Creators publish videos fulfilling a campaign “brief” (a set of requirements from a brand) and earn rewards based on real engagement metrics like watch time. Subnet 93 is dedicated to Bitcast’s creator economy use-case, making it the first application on the Bittensor network aimed at content marketing rather than pure AI model training. The value proposition of Bitcast is to remove middlemen in influencer marketing – replacing ad agencies and opaque algorithms with a transparent, programmatic system where creators are paid directly (in crypto) for the engagement they generate. Brands benefit from cost-effective, authentic outreach (hundreds of organic creator videos) and rich analytics, while creators gain a new revenue stream on top of their normal platform earnings.

Overall, Bitcast’s role within the Bittensor ecosystem is twofold: (1) to showcase Bittensor’s flexible incentive layer in a non-AI domain (creator content), and (2) to drive awareness of Bittensor itself via the very content it incentivizes. By leveraging TAO as the reward currency and its blockchain for trustless verification, Bitcast extends the network’s reach into the creator economy, demonstrating a novel “AI pays you to create content” model that could attract new users to Bittensor.

Bitcast is a decentralized platform built on Bittensor that incentivizes content creators (such as YouTube influencers) to produce brand-related content in exchange for crypto rewards. In essence, Bitcast connects brands with audiences through a network of creators, using Bittensor’s blockchain-based incentive mechanisms. Creators publish videos fulfilling a campaign “brief” (a set of requirements from a brand) and earn rewards based on real engagement metrics like watch time. Subnet 93 is dedicated to Bitcast’s creator economy use-case, making it the first application on the Bittensor network aimed at content marketing rather than pure AI model training. The value proposition of Bitcast is to remove middlemen in influencer marketing – replacing ad agencies and opaque algorithms with a transparent, programmatic system where creators are paid directly (in crypto) for the engagement they generate. Brands benefit from cost-effective, authentic outreach (hundreds of organic creator videos) and rich analytics, while creators gain a new revenue stream on top of their normal platform earnings.

Overall, Bitcast’s role within the Bittensor ecosystem is twofold: (1) to showcase Bittensor’s flexible incentive layer in a non-AI domain (creator content), and (2) to drive awareness of Bittensor itself via the very content it incentivizes. By leveraging TAO as the reward currency and its blockchain for trustless verification, Bitcast extends the network’s reach into the creator economy, demonstrating a novel “AI pays you to create content” model that could attract new users to Bittensor.

PURPOSE

What exactly is the 'product/build'?

Bitcast’s workflow involves three main participant groups – Brands, Creators (Miners), and Validators – interacting through the Bitcast platform and the Bittensor blockchain:

  • Brands (Advertisers): Brands or sponsors initiate campaigns by defining content briefs – these are guidelines or objectives for the content (for example, a brief might request a YouTube review of a product or an explainer of Bittensor, with certain key points to mention). Brands set the campaign parameters, but unlike traditional ad platforms, they don’t manually select creators or negotiate deals. They simply publish the brief to the network. (In Bitcast’s early phase, many briefs are supplied by Bitcast and Bittensor stakeholders themselves to promote the ecosystem, effectively making Bittensor-related content the first “brand” campaigns.) Once the system matures, brands will use a dedicated portal to post briefs and budgets directly.
  • Creators (Miners): Any approved content creator (initially focusing on YouTubers) can participate by running the Bitcast miner software and linking it to their YouTube account. In Bitcast, creators function analogous to “miners” in Bittensor: their work is creating content. The workflow for a creator is as follows: (1) Launch the Bitcast miner app and authenticate their YouTube channel (granting read access to performance data); (2) Browse active content briefs on the Bitcast platform and choose one that fits their channel; (3) Create a YouTube video that meets the brief’s requirements; they can use Bitcast’s AI-powered pre-check tool to verify that the video content aligns with the brief before publishing (this tool analyzes the video to ensure the key points or brand mentions are included, etc.); (4) Publish the video on their channel and submit it to Bitcast. From here, the “mining” process is hands-off – as the video accumulates views and engagement, Bitcast’s backend will track its performance.
  • Validators: In Bitcast, validators are specialized nodes that maintain the integrity of the reward system. Their job is to fetch engagement data for each participating video and decide how to distribute rewards. How this works: Validators obtain secure, temporary OAuth tokens from creators (via the Bitcast miner) to access the creator’s YouTube Analytics data. Using these tokens, a validator can pull verifiable metrics for the video associated with a brief – for example, total watch time, average view duration, and other engagement stats. The validator then evaluates if the content meets the brief (Bitcast employs an AI algorithm for content validation, ensuring the video actually followed the brief instructions) and computes the creator’s share of rewards based on the metrics. Finally, the validator node signs and submits an on-chain transaction (to the Bittensor subnet 93 chain) that issues the appropriate dTAO reward to the creator’s wallet. In summary, validators serve as the bridge between Web2 content (YouTube data) and the Web3 Bittensor network, acting in a trustless manner – they cannot arbitrarily assign rewards but must base them on on-chain verified data and code logic.

 

Behind the scenes, Bitcast also includes a Briefs Server and Dashboard (front-end web portal). The briefs server (part of Bitcast’s off-chain infrastructure) hosts the list of active campaigns that creators can view and pick from. The Creator Portal (accessible at dashboard.bitcast.network) allows creators to track their performance and earnings in real-time, showing how much engagement their videos have and how much reward has been accumulated. An Advertiser Portal (for brands) is planned for release in Q4 2025, which will let campaign sponsors post briefs and budgets directly and then monitor aggregate campaign results through an analytics dashboard (see the Roadmap section below).

Reward mechanism: Bitcast introduces a novel incentive model using Bittensor’s token economics. Each subnet in Bittensor has an allocated token emission – for Bitcast, the native TAO token is emitted as “Bitcast alpha” tokens (dTAO) to reward participants. All creators competing under active briefs on Bitcast share a daily reward pool. The size of this pool can dynamically scale based on total engagement: if the whole network of Bitcast videos is driving a lot of watch-time, the smart contract can increase the token emission up to a limit (conversely, unutilized tokens get burned). Bitcast uses a transparent scoring system to divide the daily reward pot fairly: essentially, each creator’s reward is proportional to the share of total engagement (views/watch-hours) their video contributed, relative to all videos on the subnet that day. For example, if a creator’s video accounted for 12% of the cumulative watch-time across all Bitcast campaigns, that creator would receive 12% of the token emissions for that period. Crucially, the metrics used are verifiable via YouTube’s API, and Bitcast employs a 2-day delay on new videos to ensure data accuracy (this corresponds to YouTube’s own latency in finalizing view counts). The use of on-chain validators means the payout process is trustless and automatic – no human intervention or subjective judgment is needed to reward creators. Each validator independently fetches engagement stats and reaches consensus on the contributions, which then translates into token disbursements to creators’ wallets daily. From the creators’ perspective, they simply see crypto (TAO/dTAO) arriving in their wallet as their videos gain traction.

Another important aspect is that Bitcast eliminates the traditional ad deal negotiation. There are no contracts or lengthy approval processes between creators and brands. By posting a brief, a brand effectively opens a bounty for any creator to try. Creators have full freedom – they are not bound to exclusivity or any platform beyond adhering to the brief and YouTube’s own policies. This open model, combined with daily payouts, provides a strong incentive for creators to produce quality content quickly (faster payment and less administrative overhead than typical sponsorships). It also encourages a competitive environment where many creators might respond to the same brief, but only those who achieve significant engagement will earn a larger share. In summary, Bitcast turns content creation into a friendly competition where the reward is directly tied to audience reception, enforced by on-chain logic.

 

Technical Architecture and Integration with Bittensor

Bitcast’s architecture leverages both off-chain web services and on-chain blockchain components, underpinned by Bittensor’s subnet framework:

  • Bittensor Subnet & Tokenomics: Bitcast is implemented as Bittensor Subnet 93, meaning it runs its own mini-network (of miners and validators) under Bittensor’s umbrella. The subnet has its own registration requirements (creators and validators must stake a certain amount of TAO to join, per Bittensor’s design) and its own emission schedule for rewards. The token emitted on SN93 is often referred to as dTAO (a derivative of TAO specific to this subnet) – these are the rewards creators earn, which can presumably be converted back to TAO on-chain. The Bittensor blockchain (a Substrate-based chain) handles all accounting: when validators authorize a reward to a creator, it’s a transaction on the subnet’s chain ledger. This ensures transparency (anyone can explore Bitcast’s on-chain metrics on a block explorer) and security (rewards can only be minted by the consensus rules of SN93, preventing cheating). Bitcast’s use of the Yuma consensus (Bittensor’s consensus mechanism) is adapted such that the “knowledge” being validated is YouTube engagement data rather than AI model output. In effect, the validators play the role of aggregating and verifying “work” (engagement) similar to how AI validators would verify model responses in other subnets.
  • Miner (Creator) Software: The Bitcast miner is an open-source client that creators run on their machine. It likely extends Bittensor’s mining framework (called “neurons”) with code to interface with YouTube’s APIs. When a creator sets up the miner, they go through an OAuth flow to grant the application read-access to their YouTube analytics data. This yields a token that the miner can securely pass along to validators (possibly encrypted) so that validators can pull stats without needing the creator’s direct credentials. The miner also monitors the creator’s content for any new video that matches a current brief – it might, for instance, require the creator to tag the video or include a unique identifier so the system knows which brief it corresponds to. The “video pre-check” mentioned in Bitcast’s docs is likely part of the miner or the creator portal: this would use AI (possibly NLP on the video transcript or computer vision on frames) to ensure the video includes the required talking points or visuals from the brief before the creator uploads it, thus reducing the chance of being denied rewards for missing the brief criteria. After a video is published, the miner software’s job is mostly to report the content to the network and then periodically refresh the OAuth token so validators can continue collecting analytics until the campaign ends.
  • Validator Nodes: The validators run the Bitcast validator software, also open-source. Their core function is to periodically query YouTube for each participating video’s metrics and feed that data into the on-chain reward algorithm. Validators in Bitcast must be reliable and have access to the internet (to call YouTube’s API), which is a slightly different requirement than purely computing validators in other AI subnets. The design is such that multiple independent validators can operate (ensuring decentralization); they should all retrieve the same public metrics from YouTube for a given video. Consensus on those metrics can be achieved since YouTube data is effectively an oracle input – Bitcast’s protocol likely has rules for reconciling any discrepancies or taking majority values if validators report slightly different numbers (though since the data is fetched from a single source, inconsistency should be minimal aside from timing differences). The validators then execute the reward formula (7-day moving average of minutes watched, share of total engagement, etc.) and post the results. Importantly, validators also enforce brief compliance: if a video is found not to actually follow the brief (for example, a creator tags a video for a campaign but talks about something unrelated), validators can disqualify that video from earning rewards. Bitcast’s use of an AI algorithm here would help automatically detect compliance (perhaps checking the transcript for keywords or the presence of the advertised product). This adds an extra layer of trustlessness – creators can’t just claim a reward without doing the actual task, because the network will verify it.
  • Front-End and Analytics: Bitcast provides web front-ends for both creators and (eventually) advertisers. The creator dashboard allows miners to log in with their wallet or credentials to see how their connected videos are performing in terms of engagement and rewards. It likely visualizes things like total watch hours contributed today, the creator’s ranking among other creators for a brief, and the corresponding token earnings (updated daily). On the advertiser side, Bitcast plans to launch an Analytics Portal by end of 2025 where brands can see the reach of their campaign across all the creator videos that picked up their brief. This portal will show aggregated metrics (total views, likes, comments, demographics, etc. combined from all videos in a campaign) giving brands insight into “how and where sponsored content is being viewed across multiple creators like never before”. All this data is made possible by the validators pulling detailed analytics. In traditional influencer campaigns, a brand might only get a report from each creator separately; in Bitcast, the system itself collates data across dozens of creators automatically. This is a strong selling point: AI-powered analytics at scale, with every view transparently accounted for on-chain.

 

Overall, Bitcast’s architecture marries Web2 and Web3 components: Web2 (YouTube) provides the content hosting and audience, while Web3 (Bittensor) provides the incentive layer and trust mechanism. By using the Bittensor blockchain, Bitcast avoids the need for a centralized authority to track views or pay creators – everything is handled by the network protocols. The smart contract logic (or substrate runtime logic) of Subnet 93 is coded to implement Bitcast’s unique reward rules. Bitcast is fully open-source, with a GitHub repository available, meaning the community can audit how the system works, from the scoring algorithms to the way OAuth tokens are handled. This transparency is key in a system that has to be fair to both advertisers and creators. Technical note: Because Bitcast deals with off-chain data (YouTube), it functions with an oracle-like pattern – the validators essentially act as oracles feeding data into the blockchain. The security of this relies on having multiple validators and staking (to punish any malicious reporting). It’s an interesting extension of Bittensor’s consensus, showing the flexibility of the subnet concept to handle not just AI model queries but any externally verifiable work.

 

Bitcast’s workflow involves three main participant groups – Brands, Creators (Miners), and Validators – interacting through the Bitcast platform and the Bittensor blockchain:

  • Brands (Advertisers): Brands or sponsors initiate campaigns by defining content briefs – these are guidelines or objectives for the content (for example, a brief might request a YouTube review of a product or an explainer of Bittensor, with certain key points to mention). Brands set the campaign parameters, but unlike traditional ad platforms, they don’t manually select creators or negotiate deals. They simply publish the brief to the network. (In Bitcast’s early phase, many briefs are supplied by Bitcast and Bittensor stakeholders themselves to promote the ecosystem, effectively making Bittensor-related content the first “brand” campaigns.) Once the system matures, brands will use a dedicated portal to post briefs and budgets directly.
  • Creators (Miners): Any approved content creator (initially focusing on YouTubers) can participate by running the Bitcast miner software and linking it to their YouTube account. In Bitcast, creators function analogous to “miners” in Bittensor: their work is creating content. The workflow for a creator is as follows: (1) Launch the Bitcast miner app and authenticate their YouTube channel (granting read access to performance data); (2) Browse active content briefs on the Bitcast platform and choose one that fits their channel; (3) Create a YouTube video that meets the brief’s requirements; they can use Bitcast’s AI-powered pre-check tool to verify that the video content aligns with the brief before publishing (this tool analyzes the video to ensure the key points or brand mentions are included, etc.); (4) Publish the video on their channel and submit it to Bitcast. From here, the “mining” process is hands-off – as the video accumulates views and engagement, Bitcast’s backend will track its performance.
  • Validators: In Bitcast, validators are specialized nodes that maintain the integrity of the reward system. Their job is to fetch engagement data for each participating video and decide how to distribute rewards. How this works: Validators obtain secure, temporary OAuth tokens from creators (via the Bitcast miner) to access the creator’s YouTube Analytics data. Using these tokens, a validator can pull verifiable metrics for the video associated with a brief – for example, total watch time, average view duration, and other engagement stats. The validator then evaluates if the content meets the brief (Bitcast employs an AI algorithm for content validation, ensuring the video actually followed the brief instructions) and computes the creator’s share of rewards based on the metrics. Finally, the validator node signs and submits an on-chain transaction (to the Bittensor subnet 93 chain) that issues the appropriate dTAO reward to the creator’s wallet. In summary, validators serve as the bridge between Web2 content (YouTube data) and the Web3 Bittensor network, acting in a trustless manner – they cannot arbitrarily assign rewards but must base them on on-chain verified data and code logic.

 

Behind the scenes, Bitcast also includes a Briefs Server and Dashboard (front-end web portal). The briefs server (part of Bitcast’s off-chain infrastructure) hosts the list of active campaigns that creators can view and pick from. The Creator Portal (accessible at dashboard.bitcast.network) allows creators to track their performance and earnings in real-time, showing how much engagement their videos have and how much reward has been accumulated. An Advertiser Portal (for brands) is planned for release in Q4 2025, which will let campaign sponsors post briefs and budgets directly and then monitor aggregate campaign results through an analytics dashboard (see the Roadmap section below).

Reward mechanism: Bitcast introduces a novel incentive model using Bittensor’s token economics. Each subnet in Bittensor has an allocated token emission – for Bitcast, the native TAO token is emitted as “Bitcast alpha” tokens (dTAO) to reward participants. All creators competing under active briefs on Bitcast share a daily reward pool. The size of this pool can dynamically scale based on total engagement: if the whole network of Bitcast videos is driving a lot of watch-time, the smart contract can increase the token emission up to a limit (conversely, unutilized tokens get burned). Bitcast uses a transparent scoring system to divide the daily reward pot fairly: essentially, each creator’s reward is proportional to the share of total engagement (views/watch-hours) their video contributed, relative to all videos on the subnet that day. For example, if a creator’s video accounted for 12% of the cumulative watch-time across all Bitcast campaigns, that creator would receive 12% of the token emissions for that period. Crucially, the metrics used are verifiable via YouTube’s API, and Bitcast employs a 2-day delay on new videos to ensure data accuracy (this corresponds to YouTube’s own latency in finalizing view counts). The use of on-chain validators means the payout process is trustless and automatic – no human intervention or subjective judgment is needed to reward creators. Each validator independently fetches engagement stats and reaches consensus on the contributions, which then translates into token disbursements to creators’ wallets daily. From the creators’ perspective, they simply see crypto (TAO/dTAO) arriving in their wallet as their videos gain traction.

Another important aspect is that Bitcast eliminates the traditional ad deal negotiation. There are no contracts or lengthy approval processes between creators and brands. By posting a brief, a brand effectively opens a bounty for any creator to try. Creators have full freedom – they are not bound to exclusivity or any platform beyond adhering to the brief and YouTube’s own policies. This open model, combined with daily payouts, provides a strong incentive for creators to produce quality content quickly (faster payment and less administrative overhead than typical sponsorships). It also encourages a competitive environment where many creators might respond to the same brief, but only those who achieve significant engagement will earn a larger share. In summary, Bitcast turns content creation into a friendly competition where the reward is directly tied to audience reception, enforced by on-chain logic.

 

Technical Architecture and Integration with Bittensor

Bitcast’s architecture leverages both off-chain web services and on-chain blockchain components, underpinned by Bittensor’s subnet framework:

  • Bittensor Subnet & Tokenomics: Bitcast is implemented as Bittensor Subnet 93, meaning it runs its own mini-network (of miners and validators) under Bittensor’s umbrella. The subnet has its own registration requirements (creators and validators must stake a certain amount of TAO to join, per Bittensor’s design) and its own emission schedule for rewards. The token emitted on SN93 is often referred to as dTAO (a derivative of TAO specific to this subnet) – these are the rewards creators earn, which can presumably be converted back to TAO on-chain. The Bittensor blockchain (a Substrate-based chain) handles all accounting: when validators authorize a reward to a creator, it’s a transaction on the subnet’s chain ledger. This ensures transparency (anyone can explore Bitcast’s on-chain metrics on a block explorer) and security (rewards can only be minted by the consensus rules of SN93, preventing cheating). Bitcast’s use of the Yuma consensus (Bittensor’s consensus mechanism) is adapted such that the “knowledge” being validated is YouTube engagement data rather than AI model output. In effect, the validators play the role of aggregating and verifying “work” (engagement) similar to how AI validators would verify model responses in other subnets.
  • Miner (Creator) Software: The Bitcast miner is an open-source client that creators run on their machine. It likely extends Bittensor’s mining framework (called “neurons”) with code to interface with YouTube’s APIs. When a creator sets up the miner, they go through an OAuth flow to grant the application read-access to their YouTube analytics data. This yields a token that the miner can securely pass along to validators (possibly encrypted) so that validators can pull stats without needing the creator’s direct credentials. The miner also monitors the creator’s content for any new video that matches a current brief – it might, for instance, require the creator to tag the video or include a unique identifier so the system knows which brief it corresponds to. The “video pre-check” mentioned in Bitcast’s docs is likely part of the miner or the creator portal: this would use AI (possibly NLP on the video transcript or computer vision on frames) to ensure the video includes the required talking points or visuals from the brief before the creator uploads it, thus reducing the chance of being denied rewards for missing the brief criteria. After a video is published, the miner software’s job is mostly to report the content to the network and then periodically refresh the OAuth token so validators can continue collecting analytics until the campaign ends.
  • Validator Nodes: The validators run the Bitcast validator software, also open-source. Their core function is to periodically query YouTube for each participating video’s metrics and feed that data into the on-chain reward algorithm. Validators in Bitcast must be reliable and have access to the internet (to call YouTube’s API), which is a slightly different requirement than purely computing validators in other AI subnets. The design is such that multiple independent validators can operate (ensuring decentralization); they should all retrieve the same public metrics from YouTube for a given video. Consensus on those metrics can be achieved since YouTube data is effectively an oracle input – Bitcast’s protocol likely has rules for reconciling any discrepancies or taking majority values if validators report slightly different numbers (though since the data is fetched from a single source, inconsistency should be minimal aside from timing differences). The validators then execute the reward formula (7-day moving average of minutes watched, share of total engagement, etc.) and post the results. Importantly, validators also enforce brief compliance: if a video is found not to actually follow the brief (for example, a creator tags a video for a campaign but talks about something unrelated), validators can disqualify that video from earning rewards. Bitcast’s use of an AI algorithm here would help automatically detect compliance (perhaps checking the transcript for keywords or the presence of the advertised product). This adds an extra layer of trustlessness – creators can’t just claim a reward without doing the actual task, because the network will verify it.
  • Front-End and Analytics: Bitcast provides web front-ends for both creators and (eventually) advertisers. The creator dashboard allows miners to log in with their wallet or credentials to see how their connected videos are performing in terms of engagement and rewards. It likely visualizes things like total watch hours contributed today, the creator’s ranking among other creators for a brief, and the corresponding token earnings (updated daily). On the advertiser side, Bitcast plans to launch an Analytics Portal by end of 2025 where brands can see the reach of their campaign across all the creator videos that picked up their brief. This portal will show aggregated metrics (total views, likes, comments, demographics, etc. combined from all videos in a campaign) giving brands insight into “how and where sponsored content is being viewed across multiple creators like never before”. All this data is made possible by the validators pulling detailed analytics. In traditional influencer campaigns, a brand might only get a report from each creator separately; in Bitcast, the system itself collates data across dozens of creators automatically. This is a strong selling point: AI-powered analytics at scale, with every view transparently accounted for on-chain.

 

Overall, Bitcast’s architecture marries Web2 and Web3 components: Web2 (YouTube) provides the content hosting and audience, while Web3 (Bittensor) provides the incentive layer and trust mechanism. By using the Bittensor blockchain, Bitcast avoids the need for a centralized authority to track views or pay creators – everything is handled by the network protocols. The smart contract logic (or substrate runtime logic) of Subnet 93 is coded to implement Bitcast’s unique reward rules. Bitcast is fully open-source, with a GitHub repository available, meaning the community can audit how the system works, from the scoring algorithms to the way OAuth tokens are handled. This transparency is key in a system that has to be fair to both advertisers and creators. Technical note: Because Bitcast deals with off-chain data (YouTube), it functions with an oracle-like pattern – the validators essentially act as oracles feeding data into the blockchain. The security of this relies on having multiple validators and staking (to punish any malicious reporting). It’s an interesting extension of Bittensor’s consensus, showing the flexibility of the subnet concept to handle not just AI model queries but any externally verifiable work.

 

WHO

Team Info

Bitcast was conceived and built by a small focused team, emerging from the Bittensor community. The project’s co-founders are Tom Blears and Will Blears, who are brothers with complementary backgrounds in tech and digital marketing. According to a Ventura Labs interview, Tom and Will Blears are the driving force behind Bitcast, having identified the complexity of Bittensor as an opportunity to simplify and promote it through creator-driven content. Will Blears has a software engineering background (experienced in Python and big-data technologies) and has also been involved in online marketing businesses, while Tom Blears comes from a marketing and business development side. This combination of skills (blockchain/AI tech and influencer marketing know-how) helped the team design Bitcast as both a robust decentralized application and an accessible platform for non-crypto users (creators).

Beyond the co-founders, the development work (smart contract, miner/validator code) has been open-sourced on GitHub under the user organization bitcast-network. Community contributors may participate in running validators or improving the codebase. The Bitcast team has also been active on the official Bittensor Discord, where they run a support channel for onboarding creators and miners. This indicates a close collaboration with the wider Bittensor developer community and the OpenTensor Foundation. There isn’t a long list of public team members yet (no formal team page), suggesting the core team is lean. However, given the scope of the project, we can expect the team to expand as it moves toward onboarding external brands and scaling up (including roles in business development to liaise with advertisers, and community managers to grow the creator network).

Bitcast does not currently list any external investors or major funding rounds. It appears to be a grassroots project incubated within the Bittensor ecosystem. The RootData crypto directory notes Bitcast’s status as a “Founded: 2025” project, aligning with its public launch timeline. The co-founders’ public activity (Tom joined Twitter in Feb 2024, Will in April 2025) suggests that Bitcast was under development through 2024 in stealth mode, and only recently emerged as a running subnet in Q2 2025.

In summary, Tom Blears (Co-founder) and Will Blears (Co-founder) are the key individuals behind Bitcast. They bring a mix of blockchain technical skill and content marketing expertise. Their vision is to create a sustainable creator economy on Bittensor, and they actively engage with the community via Twitter (the official handle is @Bitcast_network) and Discord to provide updates and support. As the platform grows, community validators and perhaps other subnet developers will also play a role in maintaining the network. Bitcast’s open-source nature and alignment with Bittensor’s ethos mean that, in effect, the community can be considered part of the team – especially those creators and validators who are early adopters helping to prove out the concept.

 

Bitcast was conceived and built by a small focused team, emerging from the Bittensor community. The project’s co-founders are Tom Blears and Will Blears, who are brothers with complementary backgrounds in tech and digital marketing. According to a Ventura Labs interview, Tom and Will Blears are the driving force behind Bitcast, having identified the complexity of Bittensor as an opportunity to simplify and promote it through creator-driven content. Will Blears has a software engineering background (experienced in Python and big-data technologies) and has also been involved in online marketing businesses, while Tom Blears comes from a marketing and business development side. This combination of skills (blockchain/AI tech and influencer marketing know-how) helped the team design Bitcast as both a robust decentralized application and an accessible platform for non-crypto users (creators).

Beyond the co-founders, the development work (smart contract, miner/validator code) has been open-sourced on GitHub under the user organization bitcast-network. Community contributors may participate in running validators or improving the codebase. The Bitcast team has also been active on the official Bittensor Discord, where they run a support channel for onboarding creators and miners. This indicates a close collaboration with the wider Bittensor developer community and the OpenTensor Foundation. There isn’t a long list of public team members yet (no formal team page), suggesting the core team is lean. However, given the scope of the project, we can expect the team to expand as it moves toward onboarding external brands and scaling up (including roles in business development to liaise with advertisers, and community managers to grow the creator network).

Bitcast does not currently list any external investors or major funding rounds. It appears to be a grassroots project incubated within the Bittensor ecosystem. The RootData crypto directory notes Bitcast’s status as a “Founded: 2025” project, aligning with its public launch timeline. The co-founders’ public activity (Tom joined Twitter in Feb 2024, Will in April 2025) suggests that Bitcast was under development through 2024 in stealth mode, and only recently emerged as a running subnet in Q2 2025.

In summary, Tom Blears (Co-founder) and Will Blears (Co-founder) are the key individuals behind Bitcast. They bring a mix of blockchain technical skill and content marketing expertise. Their vision is to create a sustainable creator economy on Bittensor, and they actively engage with the community via Twitter (the official handle is @Bitcast_network) and Discord to provide updates and support. As the platform grows, community validators and perhaps other subnet developers will also play a role in maintaining the network. Bitcast’s open-source nature and alignment with Bittensor’s ethos mean that, in effect, the community can be considered part of the team – especially those creators and validators who are early adopters helping to prove out the concept.

 

FUTURE

Roadmap

Bitcast’s roadmap outlines an aggressive development of features and expansion of its network from 2025 into 2026. The milestones are:

Q2 2025 – Proof of Concept Launch: This phase is focused on getting the basic network up and running. It includes the launch of Subnet 93 and its initial validator nodes, effectively bringing the Bitcast subnet online for the first time. During this phase, Bitcast is onboarding a first cohort of TAO community YouTube creators – meaning crypto content creators who are already familiar with Bittensor or are eager to create educational content about it. The content briefs at this stage are largely Bittensor-related (e.g. explainer videos, tutorials, discussions about the TAO ecosystem) set by Bitcast and allied Bittensor community members. This not only tests the system in a controlled scenario but also serves to grow awareness of Bittensor through these videos. By the end of Q2 2025, the proof-of-concept will have demonstrated that YouTube creators can indeed “mine TAO” by making content, and the technical loop of YouTube-to-blockchain validation will have been validated.

Q3 2025 – No-Code Miner & Crypto Expansion: In this phase, the focus shifts to user experience improvements and widening the creator base. A key deliverable is a No-Code Miner setup for creators – essentially a much more user-friendly Bitcast miner application or possibly a web-based onboarding flow that doesn’t require technical command-line setup. This will make it easy for non-technical YouTubers to join (perhaps a one-click installer or a cloud-hosted miner). With the onboarding simplified, Bitcast will target crypto YouTube creators at large, beyond the initial Bittensor advocates. This means reaching out to influencers who cover cryptocurrency, blockchain, AI, or tech content and showing them they can monetize via Bitcast. Concurrently, Q3 will see sponsored briefs from other TAO subnets. This indicates that various Bittensor subnet projects (for example, those focusing on other AI tasks) might allocate some budget to sponsor content via Bitcast. For instance, a subnet working on healthcare AI could post a brief for explainer videos about their project. This is an important step: it moves Bitcast beyond internally-generated briefs to real “clients” (subnet teams acting like brands). It also diversifies content on the platform. Technically, during Q3 the Bitcast team will refine the reward algorithms as more data comes in, and likely increase the decentralization (adding more miner slots and validator slots, as suggested by a higher miner cap of 256 miners on the subnet if demand allows).

Q4 2025 – Advertiser Portal and External Brands: By Q4, Bitcast plans to fully open its doors to the broader advertising market, especially within crypto. The headline feature here is the launch of the Advertisers’ Portal and Analytics Dashboard. This portal will be a platform where brands (including crypto projects, exchanges, DeFi platforms, or even non-crypto companies targeting a crypto audience) can register, create content briefs, and fund campaigns. They will have a self-serve interface to specify the brief details, target metrics, and attach a reward pool (likely by purchasing or depositing TAO/dTAO which will be used to pay creators). Alongside this, the analytics dashboard gives them live insight into the performance of their campaign across all creator videos. Bitcast emphasizes delivering unprecedented transparency to advertisers – they will see unified engagement stats and possibly be able to interact (e.g., comment or give feedback on the content). In Q4 2025, Bitcast also projects onboarding sponsored briefs from crypto brands beyond the Bittensor ecosystem. This could include blockchain companies wanting promotion, or perhaps Web3 games, NFT platforms, etc., who find the Bitcast model attractive (pay only for actual engagement). Essentially, Bitcast begins generating revenue in this phase by facilitating campaigns for paying clients. The “Advertisers portal” milestone is crucial for scaling: it’s when Bitcast transitions from a crypto community project into a full-fledged decentralized marketing platform with real advertisers on one side and hundreds of creators on the other. We can expect around this time the team will implement features like campaign budgeting, perhaps reputation scores for creators, and more sophisticated fraud prevention (to reassure brands that the views are legitimate).

2026 and Beyond – Multi-Platform Expansion and Advanced Matching: After proving itself on YouTube in 2025, Bitcast intends to expand to additional social media platforms starting 2026. This means creators on platforms such as X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and others could join the Bitcast network. The roadmap explicitly mentions adding support for more platforms and adding “additional ad features” and brand–creator matching algorithms. Expanding to other platforms will require integrating each platform’s API for data (similar to how YouTube was done). For example, to support Twitter creators, Bitcast would need to track tweet impressions or engagement in a trustless way; for TikTok, it would track video views, etc. The additional ad features likely refer to things like allowing more types of briefs (not just video – perhaps tweets, blog posts, etc.), enabling geotargeting or audience targeting for campaigns, and introducing tools like A/B testing of briefs or performance-based budget allocation. The brand vs creator matching suggests an AI-driven system to help pair advertisers with the most suitable creators automatically. As the network grows to potentially thousands of creators, a recommendation system could suggest which creators consistently perform well for certain campaign types, or conversely suggest briefs to creators that fit their content style. This makes the marketplace more efficient. By “2026 and beyond”, Bitcast envisions a fully mature decentralized creator economy platform: one that spans multiple social networks, offers a rich set of advertising tools (like a decentralized Google Ads, but for influencer content), and uses AI to optimize connections between brands and content creators.

Throughout its roadmap, Bitcast is careful to maintain an edge by leveraging Bittensor’s strengths. For instance, as it grows, the underlying TAO token economics might evolve – subnets in Bittensor compete for token rewards based on demand (via “market-driven subnet tokens” in Bittensor). If Bitcast drives substantial demand (brands buying TAO to fund campaigns, creators joining and potentially staking TAO), its subnet’s value could rise, increasing its TAO emission rate. The roadmap’s implicit goal is to create that positive feedback loop (sometimes dubbed the “Bitcast flywheel”) where more advertisers ⇒ more rewards ⇒ more creators ⇒ more overall engagement ⇒ which attracts more advertisers, and so on. In the whitepaper conclusion, Bitcast frames itself as “the foundation of a decentralized future where engagement is fairly rewarded and marketing spend works harder”. If the roadmap is executed, by 2026 Bitcast could become a significant part of not just the Bittensor ecosystem but the broader creator economy, introducing a new paradigm where anyone can monetize their influence through a blockchain, and any brand can crowdsource authentic endorsements with minimal friction.

 

Bitcast’s roadmap outlines an aggressive development of features and expansion of its network from 2025 into 2026. The milestones are:

Q2 2025 – Proof of Concept Launch: This phase is focused on getting the basic network up and running. It includes the launch of Subnet 93 and its initial validator nodes, effectively bringing the Bitcast subnet online for the first time. During this phase, Bitcast is onboarding a first cohort of TAO community YouTube creators – meaning crypto content creators who are already familiar with Bittensor or are eager to create educational content about it. The content briefs at this stage are largely Bittensor-related (e.g. explainer videos, tutorials, discussions about the TAO ecosystem) set by Bitcast and allied Bittensor community members. This not only tests the system in a controlled scenario but also serves to grow awareness of Bittensor through these videos. By the end of Q2 2025, the proof-of-concept will have demonstrated that YouTube creators can indeed “mine TAO” by making content, and the technical loop of YouTube-to-blockchain validation will have been validated.

Q3 2025 – No-Code Miner & Crypto Expansion: In this phase, the focus shifts to user experience improvements and widening the creator base. A key deliverable is a No-Code Miner setup for creators – essentially a much more user-friendly Bitcast miner application or possibly a web-based onboarding flow that doesn’t require technical command-line setup. This will make it easy for non-technical YouTubers to join (perhaps a one-click installer or a cloud-hosted miner). With the onboarding simplified, Bitcast will target crypto YouTube creators at large, beyond the initial Bittensor advocates. This means reaching out to influencers who cover cryptocurrency, blockchain, AI, or tech content and showing them they can monetize via Bitcast. Concurrently, Q3 will see sponsored briefs from other TAO subnets. This indicates that various Bittensor subnet projects (for example, those focusing on other AI tasks) might allocate some budget to sponsor content via Bitcast. For instance, a subnet working on healthcare AI could post a brief for explainer videos about their project. This is an important step: it moves Bitcast beyond internally-generated briefs to real “clients” (subnet teams acting like brands). It also diversifies content on the platform. Technically, during Q3 the Bitcast team will refine the reward algorithms as more data comes in, and likely increase the decentralization (adding more miner slots and validator slots, as suggested by a higher miner cap of 256 miners on the subnet if demand allows).

Q4 2025 – Advertiser Portal and External Brands: By Q4, Bitcast plans to fully open its doors to the broader advertising market, especially within crypto. The headline feature here is the launch of the Advertisers’ Portal and Analytics Dashboard. This portal will be a platform where brands (including crypto projects, exchanges, DeFi platforms, or even non-crypto companies targeting a crypto audience) can register, create content briefs, and fund campaigns. They will have a self-serve interface to specify the brief details, target metrics, and attach a reward pool (likely by purchasing or depositing TAO/dTAO which will be used to pay creators). Alongside this, the analytics dashboard gives them live insight into the performance of their campaign across all creator videos. Bitcast emphasizes delivering unprecedented transparency to advertisers – they will see unified engagement stats and possibly be able to interact (e.g., comment or give feedback on the content). In Q4 2025, Bitcast also projects onboarding sponsored briefs from crypto brands beyond the Bittensor ecosystem. This could include blockchain companies wanting promotion, or perhaps Web3 games, NFT platforms, etc., who find the Bitcast model attractive (pay only for actual engagement). Essentially, Bitcast begins generating revenue in this phase by facilitating campaigns for paying clients. The “Advertisers portal” milestone is crucial for scaling: it’s when Bitcast transitions from a crypto community project into a full-fledged decentralized marketing platform with real advertisers on one side and hundreds of creators on the other. We can expect around this time the team will implement features like campaign budgeting, perhaps reputation scores for creators, and more sophisticated fraud prevention (to reassure brands that the views are legitimate).

2026 and Beyond – Multi-Platform Expansion and Advanced Matching: After proving itself on YouTube in 2025, Bitcast intends to expand to additional social media platforms starting 2026. This means creators on platforms such as X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and others could join the Bitcast network. The roadmap explicitly mentions adding support for more platforms and adding “additional ad features” and brand–creator matching algorithms. Expanding to other platforms will require integrating each platform’s API for data (similar to how YouTube was done). For example, to support Twitter creators, Bitcast would need to track tweet impressions or engagement in a trustless way; for TikTok, it would track video views, etc. The additional ad features likely refer to things like allowing more types of briefs (not just video – perhaps tweets, blog posts, etc.), enabling geotargeting or audience targeting for campaigns, and introducing tools like A/B testing of briefs or performance-based budget allocation. The brand vs creator matching suggests an AI-driven system to help pair advertisers with the most suitable creators automatically. As the network grows to potentially thousands of creators, a recommendation system could suggest which creators consistently perform well for certain campaign types, or conversely suggest briefs to creators that fit their content style. This makes the marketplace more efficient. By “2026 and beyond”, Bitcast envisions a fully mature decentralized creator economy platform: one that spans multiple social networks, offers a rich set of advertising tools (like a decentralized Google Ads, but for influencer content), and uses AI to optimize connections between brands and content creators.

Throughout its roadmap, Bitcast is careful to maintain an edge by leveraging Bittensor’s strengths. For instance, as it grows, the underlying TAO token economics might evolve – subnets in Bittensor compete for token rewards based on demand (via “market-driven subnet tokens” in Bittensor). If Bitcast drives substantial demand (brands buying TAO to fund campaigns, creators joining and potentially staking TAO), its subnet’s value could rise, increasing its TAO emission rate. The roadmap’s implicit goal is to create that positive feedback loop (sometimes dubbed the “Bitcast flywheel”) where more advertisers ⇒ more rewards ⇒ more creators ⇒ more overall engagement ⇒ which attracts more advertisers, and so on. In the whitepaper conclusion, Bitcast frames itself as “the foundation of a decentralized future where engagement is fairly rewarded and marketing spend works harder”. If the roadmap is executed, by 2026 Bitcast could become a significant part of not just the Bittensor ecosystem but the broader creator economy, introducing a new paradigm where anyone can monetize their influence through a blockchain, and any brand can crowdsource authentic endorsements with minimal friction.

 

MEDIA

Novelty Search is great, but for most investors trying to understand Bittensor, the technical depth is a wall, not a bridge. If we’re going to attract investment into this ecosystem then we need more people to understand it! That’s why Siam Kidd and Mark Creaser from DSV Fund have launched Revenue Search, where they ask the simple questions that investors want to know the answers to.

Recorded in August 2025, this episode of Revenue Search features Tom and Will, the brother duo behind Subnet 18 — Bitcast — a content-driven Bittensor subnet transforming the influencer and marketing landscape. Bitcast uses the Bittensor incentive model to reward YouTube creators (aka “miners”) who produce content based on brand briefs. Brands like subnets or ecosystem tools can submit a brief, and creators compete to fulfill it, with engagement-based scoring handled by AI. Videos are validated via LLMs for accuracy and rewarded based on YouTube revenue metrics, not inflated by paid ads. All revenue from brand briefs (currently a flat 10 Tao per campaign) is used for public alpha buybacks and burns. The team shares details of Bitcast V2, pre-roll ad support for podcasts, multilingual content scaling, and a new agency model that lets external networks build on top of Bitcast. With increasing demand, a growing creator pool, and expansion plans to other chains like Ethereum and Solana, Bitcast is positioning itself as a disruptive force in content marketing, blending crypto-native incentives with real-world brand visibility.

A special thanks to Mark Jeffrey for his amazing Hash Rate series! In this series, he provides valuable insights into Bittensor Subnets and the world of decentralized AI. Be sure to check out the full series on his YouTube channel for more expert analysis and deep dives.

Recorded August 2025: Mark Jeffrey sits down with Tom Blears of Bitcast (Subnet 93) to unpack how Bittensor’s “incentive alignment engine” can power a creator-led marketing network. Bitcast issues concise video briefs and ads that creators can pick up; AI then watches the uploads, verifies compliance, and rewards genuine engagement (favoring minutes watched), effectively letting YouTubers “mine” by making content. They discuss why this model beats manual brand deals, how rewards now use a predictable CPM framework, and how emissions and staking route value back to TAO rather than scatter it—contrasting this with traditional chains’ big marketing budgets. Tom shares pricing for dedicated briefs (10 TAO), early results, and plans for a no-code miner plus expansion to X, TikTok, and Instagram with multilingual support. Overall, a bullish look at Bittensor’s growth and Bitcast’s role in scaling it.

From September 2025 at The Realistic Traders quarterly event, Subnet 93 “Bitcast” outlined a decentralized, multi-platform marketplace that connects brands with creators and pays them in alpha tokens based on verified attention, not flat fees: brands post briefs, creators publish content, Bitcast’s AI checks the video hits the brief and pulls first-party analytics (e.g., via YouTube APIs) to calculate two-week engagement-based payouts, tackling today’s influencer marketing pain points (fake metrics, manual outreach, slow contracts, scams). They’re launching a no-code miner so non-technical creators can “mine” by just signing up with email, adding X (Twitter) next (initially KOL scoring, video later), and a self-serve brand portal (fund, target, track) with plans to expand from Bittensor to broader crypto and Web2 advertisers; revenue will be used for buybacks/burns of the alpha token. Q&A covered anti-fraud methods, timing of rewards (two weeks from publish), agency/“bring-your-own-creator” use, openness to AI-generated presenters (results mixed so far), and rapid early traction (hundreds of creators/videos and rising watch-time), with one miner showing sizable earnings from a handful of videos.

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