Bittensor’s Decentralized Lie Exposed, Covenant AI Announces the Entire Team Has Left

Decentralized AI training team Covenant AI announced on April 10 that it is exiting the Bittensor network, and specifically called out the network’s key figure, Jacob Steeves, accusing him of betraying its decentralization promises. Covenant AI founder Sam Dare said: “The entire core commitment of Bittensor—that no single entity can control it—is a lie.”

Accusation List: Five Suppression Actions by Const Against Covenant AI

In its statement, Covenant AI detailed a series of specific actions that Const took against its team, forming the direct basis for its decision to withdraw：

Sam Dare Accuses Const of the Main Suppression Actions

Pausing token emissions: Const unilaterally paused the token emissions for Covenant AI’s subnet under its control, directly cutting off its source of economic incentives within the Bittensor ecosystem

Revoking community administration permissions: Const stripped Covenant AI of control over its own community channels, effectively taking control of its external communication channels

Decommissioning subnet infrastructure: Const unilaterally decommissioned Covenant AI’s subnet infrastructure, causing its technical deployments on the Bittensor network to fall into collapse

Applying pressure through large-scale token selloffs: During the period of conflict between the two sides, Const applied economic pressure on Covenant AI through large-scale, high-visibility token selloffs

Bypassing the consensus mechanism: All of the above actions were not carried out through the network’s formal consensus process for governance, showing effective individual control over the multisig mechanism

Bittensor “Decentralization Theater”: The truth behind the 3-of-multisig of three people

Covenant AI’s core accusations point to the fundamental gap between Bittensor’s claimed governance mechanism and its real-world operation. Bittensor publicly markets that it uses a “3-of-multisig” governance framework as an institutional safeguard for decentralization. However, Covenant AI directly states that Const exerts effective control over this multisig mechanism, enabling unilateral changes to be pushed through at any time while bypassing consensus, and that the other multisig participants are merely “a shield to carry legal responsibility.”

If this allegation is true, it would mean that while Bittensor’s governance architecture is decentralized at the technical design level, it is still led by a single individual at the operational level—forming a kind of “decentralization theater,” where decentralization exists in documents and whitepapers, but centralization exists in real decision-making.

Covenant AI’s confidence: This exit is not a failure—it’s a deliberate choice

The credibility of this withdrawal statement is built on Covenant AI’s actual technical achievements. Covenant-72B is, to date, the largest decentralized LLM pretraining project, with 72 billion parameters, spanning participation from over 70 independent contributors. It received public recognition from NVIDIA CEO, and was cited by Anthropic’s co-founder—making its reputation in the AI industry exceed the Bittensor ecosystem itself.

Covenant AI announced that the team, research outcomes, and models will all be taken along, and also previewed that new project announcements will be released soon, showing that this exit is more like an intentional ecosystem migration rather than a forced departure.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the core reason Covenant AI is exiting Bittensor?

According to the public statement by Covenant AI founder Sam Dare, the core reason for the exit is that Bittensor’s core figure Const (Jacob Steeves) took a series of suppression actions against its team, including pausing token emissions, revoking community administration permissions, decommissioning infrastructure, and applying economic pressure through token selloffs. Moreover, all actions were carried out unilaterally by bypassing formal governance consensus.

What problems exist with Bittensor’s 3-of-multisig governance?

Covenant AI points out that in real-world operations, Bittensor’s claimed “3-of-multisig” governance framework is under Const’s effective control, leaving other multisig participants without real checks and balances. They only bear legal responsibility and are unable to prevent Const from unilaterally pushing changes. Covenant AI directly describes this as “decentralization theater.”

What is Covenant AI’s Covenant-72B project?

Covenant-72B is Covenant AI’s decentralized LLM pretraining project completed within the Bittensor ecosystem. It has 72 billion parameters, involves over 70 independent contributors, and is the largest of its kind to date. The project received public recognition from NVIDIA’s CEO and was cited by Anthropic’s co-founder, giving Covenant AI substantial industry influence even at the time of its exit.