Bittensor co-founder characterized Simon Dare’s exit as a “deep betrayal,” accusing his former colleague of intentionally inflicting “maximum pain” on the community and causing significant financial losses for investors.
Key Takeaways:
Jacob Steeves accused Samuel Dare of betrayal after Covenant AI exited, sparking a 25% crash in TAO price. The fallout erased $650 million in market cap and triggered $9.1 million in long liquidations on April 10. Bittensor will propose a “Locked Stake” feature during the next Discord community call. Betrayal AllegationsSteeves did not mince words regarding the emotional impact of the split, describing Dare as someone he “considered a brother.” He accused Dare of taking actions designed to inflict “maximum pain” on the protocol and its community.
“He let everyone down who bought his token and who trusted in him,” Steeves stated. “He betrayed us all.”
However, addressing users who suffered losses during the price crash, Steeves offered an apology to users who felt a “financial rug” was pulled out from under them. While he dismissed Dare’s accusations of centralization as “unfounded”—suggesting his former colleague may be experiencing a personal crisis—he acknowledged that the incident highlighted a “genuine threat” to the network’s stability.
The ‘Locked Stake’ ProposalRegarding the specific subnets left in limbo by Covenant AI’s departure, Steeves confirmed that the community is already moving to reorganize. Because Bittensor is built on open-source code, miners and the remaining team members are expected to revive the project.
“Functionally, these subnets should not change,” he noted, emphasizing that a single individual never owned the vision for these tools.
