TAO Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing

Bittensor (TAO) is inflationary by design. In the 90 days to Oct 13 2026 the network paid out 324,000 TAO in block rewards and, on Sep 15 2026, minted a one-time 172,001 TAO to repair its root staking pool, while fees and subnet registrations removed 6,889 TAO. Net, TAO supply grew +4.31% of the 11.34M TAO in circulation, and about +2.79% is projected for the next 90 days now that the one-time mint is behind it. The monitor reads +18.15%; that number is inflated by a one-day recount of the public supply figure, not by new TAO. Bittensor has a hard cap of 21M TAO and halves its block reward by issuance, with the next halving about three years away.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Our 90-day net reading for TAO is +4.31%, and the projection for the next 90 days is +2.79%. The monitor reads +18.15%, a gap of 13.84 percentage points, far above the 0.5-point line, so the TAO page carries a monitor-gap warning. We walked every source and the gap does not come from the chain: the public supply figure the monitor follows sat near 9.60M TAO every day until Sep 14 2026, then jumped about 1.75M TAO in one day on Sep 15 2026 to 11.34M. That jump counts TAO issued long before this window. On the Bittensor chain itself, issued supply rose from 11.13M to 11.61M TAO between Jul 15 and Oct 13 2026, which is exactly our ledger: block rewards plus the one-time mint, less recycling. In one line, TAO is a fixed-reward, capped-supply chain that still adds about 1% to its float every month.

Sell pressure: where new TAO comes from

The first and steady source is the block reward. Bittensor makes a block about every 12 seconds, and since the first halving in December 2025 each block creates 0.5 TAO. Over the 648,000 blocks of this window that is 324,000 TAO, about 3,600 TAO a day, and we checked that every sampled block paid out exactly 0.5 TAO. The new TAO flows into subnet pools and on to miners, validators, subnet owners and stakers, who are the natural sellers of it. The same rate gives about 323,671 TAO over the next 90 days.

TAO has no vesting unlocks. Bittensor had a fair launch with no token sale, no team allocation and no investor share, so every TAO was earned as a block reward and there is no calendar of unlocks to wait for. There is also no foundation reserve or unscheduled unlock: the Opentensor Foundation has no allocation to release. Nothing is held by a bankruptcy estate or a trustee, and no long lock is running out.

The one unusual item is a one-time mint. For a long time, rewards to stakers on the root network were credited to their stake without the matching TAO being moved into the root pool, so the pool came up short and the last stakers to leave could not be paid in full. A network upgrade on Sep 15 2026 measured the shortfall and minted 172,001 TAO in a single block to close it. It is real new TAO, so it counts as sell pressure in the last 90 days. It was built to run once, and the root pool still matches its stakers' holdings a month later, so nothing more is expected from it in the next 90 days.

Buy pressure: where new TAO goes

TAO has no buyback. Many subnets now buy back their own subnet tokens with revenue, but those purchases do not take TAO out of supply, and no foundation or treasury buys TAO.

The only thing that removes TAO is recycling. Transaction fees, on the native chain and its EVM side, and the fees paid to register on a subnet are taken out of the issued supply. Over the window that came to 6,889 TAO, about 1.4% of what was created. Most of it came in a few large registration days on top of a small amount every day. On Sep 18 2026 Bittensor cut every transaction fee in half; since then about 85 TAO a day has been recycled, so we project about 7,671 TAO for the next 90 days. Recycled TAO can be paid out again later, which also pushes the next halving a little further away.

Staking is the largest lock on the network, with about 7.45M TAO staked into subnets and the root network. But staked TAO still counts as circulating and can be unstaked, so more staking does not shrink the float. It is a new long-term lock of zero in our ledger.

Foundation and overhang

Bittensor has a very small team-controlled overhang. The Opentensor Foundation's known wallet held about 629 TAO on Oct 13 2026, up about 103 TAO over the window, and there is no treasury module or DAO treasury holding TAO. Subnet owners have locked about 31.6K TAO to register their subnets, and subnet pools hold about 7.45M TAO that stakers can pull out by selling their subnet tokens; both already sit inside the circulating count, so a move out of them is a transfer between holders, not new supply. Listed companies and the Grayscale Bittensor Trust hold TAO they bought in the market. We read these balances from the chain every day. If the Foundation wallet's balance falls between our checks, the outflow will be added to the Foundation row at the next check.

How TAO compares to other capped-supply chains

TAO copies the shape of Bitcoin's money: a 21M cap and halvings that cut the reward in half. The difference is the trigger. Bitcoin halves every 210,000 blocks, so its halving dates are fixed; Bittensor halves when total issuance crosses a set level (10.5M, then 15.75M), and because recycled TAO is taken out of the count, recycling delays the next halving. TAO is also much earlier in its schedule. Bitcoin's supply grows about 0.2% every 90 days today, while TAO's block reward alone adds about 2.9% of its float every 90 days, because only about 54% of the 21M cap exists so far.

Against uncapped proof-of-stake chains that pay stakers in new coins, TAO is closer than it looks. Those chains also add new supply every block, but most have no cap and some burn part of their fees. TAO's fee recycling is tiny next to its reward, about 1.4% of new TAO, so unlike chains where a fee burn can cancel most of the issuance, TAO's supply only grows. What sets TAO apart is where the reward goes: into subnet pools that pay AI work, which means the main sellers are the miners and validators who are paid to run them.

What to watch in the next 90 days

The block reward will keep adding about 3,600 TAO a day until total issuance reaches 15.75M TAO, roughly three years away, so no halving falls inside this window.

Watch for any new one-time mint: a network upgrade can create TAO outside the block reward, as the one on Sep 15 2026 did, and we re-read the chain at every rebuild to catch one.

Watch the recycling rate. Fees were halved on Sep 18 2026, and an upgrade released on Oct 7 2026 lets subnet owners accept free proof-of-work registration instead of a paid one, which could make the TAO removed each day even smaller.

Watch the public supply figure: it now trails the chain by about 275K TAO and has not moved since Sep 15 2026, so another one-day catch-up is likely at some point and would again make the monitor read high.

Summary

TAO, the token of Bittensor, grew its supply +4.31% in the 90 days to Oct 13 2026: 324,000 TAO of block rewards plus a one-time 172,001 TAO mint, less 6,889 TAO recycled. With the one-time mint behind it, the next 90 days project about +2.79%, almost all of it from the fixed 0.5 TAO block reward. There is no vesting, no foundation reserve and no buyback, so the main risk is simply steady selling of new TAO by the miners, validators and stakers who earn it. The ceiling is the 21M TAO hard cap, with the next halving to 0.25 TAO per block about three years away.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of TAO, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 13 2026.