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Bittensor Developer Documentation

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Welcome! Bittensor is a protocol for decentralized subnets. Subnets exist to produce decentralized intelligence. Each subnet is an incentive-based competitive market in action, to produce the best decentralized intelligence. For example, the text prompting subnet incentivizes subnet miners who produce the best prompt completions in response to the prompts sent by the subnet validators in that subnet.

Subnets run on blockchain and constitute the core of the Bittensor ecosystem. The rewards for subnet participants are in the form of TAO tokens.

looking for a non-technical introduction to Bittensor?

Bittensor provides all the open source tools, the codebase and the documentation, with step-by-step tutorials and guides, to enable you to participate in the Bittensor ecosystem.


Start here

If you are new to Bittensor, start by learning the concepts. Then install the Bittensor software and create a wallet. Follow the below links.

Learn the concepts
Start by learning the Bittensor concept, building blocks and incentive mechanism.
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Install
To validate or mine, or run your own subnet, install Bittensor and create wallet to get started.
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How to participate

A straightforward way to participate in the Bittensor network is to be a subnet miner or a subnet validator in an existing subnet. It is not necessary to create a subnet. Follow the below links in the Validate or mine section. Alternately, if you want to create your own custom incentive mechanism, then you create your own subnet and launch your own competition. See the below Running a subnet section.


Validate or mine

You can participate in an existing subnet as either a subnet validator or a subnet miner. Follow the below links.

1. Checklist for validating and mining
When you are preparing to be a subnet validator or a subnet miner, use this checklist to get ready.
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2. Register, validate and mine
Follow these steps to register and become a miner, or stake your TAO and become a validator.
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3. Emissions
Learn how dividends for the validators and incentives for the miners are calculated.
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4. Staking and Delegation
Get to know how staking and delegating your TAO works in the Bittensor network.
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Governance
Learn how the Bittensor governance works as it transitions into full community-ownership over time.
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Senate
Understand what Senate is, requirements to participate in a Senate and how voting works.
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Running a subnet

Ready to run your own subnet? Follow the below links.

Basic subnet tutorials
Learn how to run a simple subnet locally or on testchain or mainchain.
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Create a subnet
Step-by-step instructions for creating a local subnet or a subnet on testchain or mainchain.
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OCR subnet tutorial
Shows how to convert your Python notebook containing validated code for an incentive mechanism into a working subnet.
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Subnet hyperparameters
Get to know subnet hyperparameters and how to use them effectively. As a subnet owner, your success depends on this knowledge.
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Bittensor CLI and API

Use the Bittensor CLI and Python API to develop and participate in the Bittensor network.

Bittensor CLI
With Bittensor CLI, you can stake or unstake funds, check network state and much more.
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Python API
A comprehensive Python API reference documentation for the open-sourced Bittensor API.
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