Bittensor's decentralized AI model may be the best-kept secret in crypto—and one venture capitalist believes it could go 135x from today's price

At a recent summit in Austin, Texas, venture capitalist and Contango Digital Assets founder Mike Grantis made a headline-grabbing call: he believes the price of TAO, the native token of decentralized AI network Bittensor, could surpass $62,500 by the end of 2030.

That's a 13,500% increase from where TAO trades today—roughly $474 as of this writing, according to Coinmarketcap.

 The Contango Blockchain x AI Fund is investing in projects building in the Bittensor ecosystem, a decentralized AI project. Grantis delivered the bold projection during his keynote at the inaugural Bittensor Endgame Summit, a three-day gathering of developers, researchers, and investors aligned around the emerging thesis that decentralization—not Big Tech—is the future of artificial intelligence. 

"Technology grows exponentially," Grantis said in a follow-up interview. "And each iteration of technology moves faster than the previous. If Bitcoin could reach a trillion-dollar market cap in 12 years just as a store of value, then a network like Bittensor—with real utility, developer adoption, and hundreds of functional AI subnets—has the potential to outpace even that."

Grantis provided a slide of assets that each reached a $1 trillion market valuation—and how long it took listed below—as part of his summit presentation. He predicts that once Bittensor reaches that valuation mark it will be well on its way to achieving his per token price estimate as well.

Is Bittensor Crypto, AI or Both?

At its core, Bittensor is a blockchain-based protocol that rewards developers, researchers, and entrepreneurs for building useful AI tools and services. Its unique structure decentralizes both AI training and inference by connecting independent networks (called subnets) through a shared token, TAO, which powers economic incentives and validation.

"Bittensor is not just about AI," Grantis noted. "What it is—at the deepest layer—is a mechanism for aligning incentives and creating marketplaces that drive the creation of digital commodities. Right now, most of those are AI-based, but it doesn't have to be that way."

Unlike traditional tech platforms that hoard proprietary models, energy and data, Bittensor encourages openness and collaboration by letting anyone contribute or compete to build better AI.

That structure leads to what Grantis described as a powerful economic flywheel, "You don't have to build a product, raise money, and sell it to customers before you get paid. On Bittensor, you build something useful, and if the network agrees, you start earning emissions—real value—on day one."

AI advantage: Reed’s Law Versus Moore’s Law

To understand why venture capitalist Mike Grantis believes Bittensor's TAO token could one day be worth more than $62,000, it helps to grasp a few simple ideas from network theory—a way to think about how connections between people (or computers, or apps) add value over time.

Think about social media: if you have one user, there’s no one to talk to. Add a second person, and they can connect. Add a third, and suddenly, each person can now connect with two others. The more people you add, the more possible connections emerge.

This is where Metcalfe's Law comes in. It says that the value of a network grows in proportion to the square of the number of users (or nodes). For example, if you double the number of users, the potential connections grow fourfold. Think of your 13-year-old's YouTube channel—when he starts with 10 subscribers, his reach is small. But if he hits 100, suddenly he has far more potential to gain likes, shares, and engagement. That's Metcalfe's Law at work.

But now picture Mr. Beast, the world-famous YouTube star. He doesn’t just connect with fans—he connects communities of fans, brand sponsors, collaborators, and charities. That's something even more powerful. It's what Reed's Law describes: not just how people connect one-to-one, but how they form groups, subgroups, and communities. Reed's Law says that the value of a network grows exponentially—as fast as 2 to the power of the number of participants—because people form combinations and communities that spark new ideas and reach.

Could AI Make Bittensor Bigger Than Bitcoin?

Grantis believes that Bittensor follows Reed's Law, not just Metcalfe's.

"Bittensor isn't just one big network—it's a network of sub-networks," he explained. "Each subnet can interact with others or stand on its own. And when those subnet teams promote and market their AI models independently, you get a flywheel effect that grows faster than anything we've seen with Metcalfe's Law alone."

That kind of exponential growth—built on a foundation of self-reinforcing incentives—is what Grantis says could drive TAO's value higher than most people expect. And because every subnet contributes real utility, from fraud detection to protein folding, Grantis believes this is more than speculation: it's an ecosystem producing measurable economic value.

"When you have not just nodes, but sub-networks interacting, the usefulness of each one multiplies," he said. "It's why I think Bittensor could outscale even Bitcoin over time."

The TAO AI Project Wasn’t Perfect But It’s Better Than It Was

For those familiar with decentralized AI, Bittensor has been a leader in the space since 2023. Despite its novel incentive structure and unique “Proof of Useful Work” consensus model to secure network transactions, critics have been quick to point out its flaws. Some cite the consensus model has being overly complex and that it’s too dependent on too few validators—potentially opening the door for abuses.

One such abuse is the concept of weight copying within the Bittensor network. Weight copying undermines originality by allowing participants to reap rewards without contributing unique value. For sake of speed and ease, some sketchy validators simply copy the results of honest validators and post the copied results as their own—earning a payment without the work or vigilance required to ensure viability of the Bittensor ecosystem. Weight copying dilutes the incentive structure, crowds out innovation and leads to a “vanilla” network of copycat models rather than a diverse, decentralized AI economy. Over time, this behavior risks eroding trust in the protocol's core promise, which is rewarding useful, novel intelligence.

However, most of those issues TAO faced have been virtually eliminated with the launch of Dynamic TAO (dTAO) in February 2025, which moves most of the incentive structure out of the hands of large asset holders and validators into the marketplace itself. Basically the dTAO upgrade created a system of checks and balances to let the marketplace determine if any given project adds value to the ecosystem—rather than a single select  group. It also transforms every subnet into an individual marketing engine for Bittensor, as each subnet needs to lobby the entire investment community as to why their subnet is worthy of investment.

"I think it’s [dTAO] been one of the most remarkable launches I've ever seen. From a technical perspective everything has seemed to work flawlessly without a hiccup since launch. So I think for them to have the courage to launch it live on a novelty search and for everybody to be able to watch the block sequence change was incredible,” says Grantis.

Bittensor Drove AI’s Law of Attraction for Grantis

Grantis co-founded Contango after he launched and sold a crypto media company in the early 2020s. Contango started as a private syndicate investing in early-stage crypto projects. It grew to include more than 250 members, and it ended up financing more than $12 million in deals before creating its first asset fund.

"In mid-2023, we found Bittensor. It's probably more accurate to say that it found me," Grantis recalls. "It was that same lightbulb moment I had with Bitcoin. I told my partner that everything else needs to be put on hold."

That conviction led to the launch of Contango Labs, an incubator-style firm that's become an established part of the Bittensor ecosystem. The lab helps AI startups develop and grow high-value Bittensor subnets–which are similar to apps on the iPhone.

A Parallel to Berkshire Hathaway?

He says they offer more than money and often act as a co-development partner. "We're not just investing capital—we're investing dev time, architectural design and go-to-market support," Grantis said. "We see ourselves as a blend of Y Combinator and Berkshire Hathaway–except for decentralized AI infrastructure."

Through Contango Labs, Grantis is now helping startup teams build on Bittensor by incubating subnet projects that combine AI infrastructure with practical utility.

Asked if centralized AI players like OpenAI or Anthropic pose a threat, he shook his head. "The ideologies are completely different. One is about profit extraction. The other is about the democratization of intelligence."

While skeptics might scoff at a five-figure price target for TAO, Grantis remains undeterred. "This is the pre-product phase of the internet all over again," he said. "Except this time, it's not just about data or content—it's about intelligence. And Bittensor is the platform that's aligning the incentives to make that happen."

Disclaimer: readers need to do their own research and personal risk assessment before investing in any assets. The views and insights presented here regarding various projects are for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice.