Staking
Staking tao/alpha is how investors earn yield.
Staking plays a principal role in the functioning of the Bittensor network. In February 2025, the dTao release gave stakeholders additional power: staking into a subnet increases the emissions of the subnet.
Staking Options
Section titled “Staking Options”in dTao, there are two options for staking:
Staking to root
Section titled “Staking to root”Staking to root uses only tao. Your tao is staked on a root validator, and you receive returns based on the validator’s performance in the subnets.
Staking to root is a safe staking option - there is no way to lose tao value. However, root staking decreases over time by design, as the root proportion decreases on all subnets.
Live widget RootProp — placeholder during migration.
Emission is rewarded approximately every 2 days. But it is randomly awarded by the chain, and a week is not abnormal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed7SCDGmM4Q
Root Staking Options
Section titled “Root Staking Options”In November 2025, Bittensor launched the following change to the way root stake operates:
Emissions are not automatically awarded every 360 blocks, but will be awarded approximately daily. The time will be random, and so may be sometimes longer than a day, sometimes less than a day.
Stakeholders will have two options in receiving rewards:
(Default) Swap (root claim)
Section titled “(Default) Swap (root claim)”Root claim is the default option, and works similarly to the way root sketig works today. All the alpha earned will be converted to tao, and awarded to your root hotkey, approximately once a day.
Keep (Alpha Claim)
Section titled “Keep (Alpha Claim)”In fall 2025, root stakeholders may choose alpha claim. This feature keeps your earned emission in alpha in every subnet. In this scenario, the claimed alpha is not converted to tao, but remains on the subnet staked as alpha.
Keep Selected
Section titled “Keep Selected”This is a hybrid - you can choose to keep alpha for some subnets. The remaining subnets will be sold to tao, and your root balance will be increased.
Staking to alpha
Section titled “Staking to alpha”This is the new feature and primary goal of dTao - to enable stakeholders to vote and determine the emissions for every subnet.
To stake in alpha, tao is exchanged via the Subnet Pools into alpha. This will incur Slippage. The received alpha is then staked to the validator selected. Your returns will be in alpha, and autocompounded to the validator hotkey.
Staking to alpha does incur risk: a drop in alpha token price will result in a lower amout of tao when unstaking.
Emission is awarded every 360 blocks (approx 72 minutes).
Moving stake
Section titled “Moving stake”The move stake command can be used to switch validators in a subnet. Under the hood, this is an unstake, and then staking. However, only one fee is charged.