The inaugural Bittensor Revenue Index, released by SubConnect in late August 2026, tracks revenue across 24 subnets. These projects generate an estimated $28 million to $35 million in annual income from paying customers, including enterprise clients like PwC France, Dropbox, and an NYSE-listed REIT.
Compute and infrastructure subnets drive the majority of this income, accounting for $23.1 million to $27.3 million, or approximately 78% to 82% of total verified revenue. Three leading subnets—Lium, Targon, and Chutes—collect nearly half of the entire ecosystem's verified revenue.
Fourteen subnets are currently using a portion of their external earnings to buy back their own tokens. This strategy aims to create sustained demand for specific assets. Notably, two subnets now generate more revenue from customers than they receive through network miner emissions.
Despite these figures, the network remains heavily reliant on token incentives, with total annual TAO emissions estimated at over $300 million. The external revenue currently covers only 9% to 12% of the total payouts provided by the network to participants.
