Bittensor's decentralized AI model may be the best-kept secret in crypto—and one venture capitalist believes it could go 135x from today's price

Venture capitalist Mike Grantis believes that Bittensor, a decentralized artificial intelligence network, may be the best-kept secret in crypto. And in a recent interview at the inaugural Bittensor Endgame Summit in Austin, Texas, Grantis said he believes the price of TAO, Bittensor’s native token, could surge to $62,500 by the end of 2030.

That’s a 13,500% increase from where TAO trades today—roughly $474 as of this writing, according to Coinmarketcap.

Grantis, founder of Contango Digital Assets, is investing in projects building in the Bittensor ecosystem through the Contango Blockchain x AI Fund. Grantis’s firm is focused on blockchain startup incubation, and it’s part of a broader venture capital interest in Web3 startups.

At the three-day gathering of Bittensor developers, researchers and investors, Grantis said he believes the protocol’s unique structure—which is designed to reward contributions broadly and deter free riders—could lead to a powerful economic flywheel.

“Technology grows exponentially,” said Grantis. “And each iteration of technology moves faster than the previous. If Bitcoin could reach a trillion-dollar market cap in 12 years just as a store of value, then a network like Bittensor—with real utility, developer adoption, and hundreds of functional AI subnets—has the potential to outpace even that.”

Grantis showed a slide of assets that each reached a $1 trillion market valuation—and how long it took—as part of his summit presentation. He predicts that once Bittensor reaches that valuation mark it will be well on its way to achieving his per token price estimate as well.

A Framework for Network Value: From Metcalfe’s Law to Combinations

To understand why Grantis believes Bittensor’s TAO token could one day be worth more than $62,000, it helps to grasp a few simple ideas from network theory—a way of thinking about how connections between people (or computers, or apps) add value over time.

Think about social media: if you have one user, there’s no one to talk to. Add a second person, and they can connect. Add a third, and suddenly, each person can now connect with two others. The more people you add, the more possible connections emerge.

This is where Metcalfe’s Law comes in. It says that the value of a network grows in proportion to the square of the number of users (or nodes). For example, if you double the number of users, the potential connections grow fourfold.

Think of your 13-year-old’s YouTube channel—when he starts with 10 subscribers, his reach is small. But if he hits 100, suddenly he has far more potential to gain likes, shares and engagement. That’s Metcalfe’s Law at work.

But now picture Mr. Beast, the world-famous YouTube star. He doesn’t just connect with fans—he connects communities of fans, brand sponsors, collaborators and charities. That’s something even more powerful. It’s what Reed’s Law describes: not just how people connect one-to-one, but how they form groups, subgroups and communities.

Reed’s Law says that the value of a network grows exponentially—as fast as 2 to the power of the number of participants—because people form combinations and communities that spark new ideas and reach.

A Decentralized AI Protocol and Its Token

At its core, Bittensor is a blockchain-based protocol that rewards developers, researchers and entrepreneurs for building useful AI tools and services. Its unique structure decentralizes both AI training and inference by connecting independent networks (called subnets) through a shared token, TAO, which powers economic incentives and validation.

“Bittensor isn’t just about AI,” Grantis noted. “What it is—at the deepest layer—is a mechanism for aligning incentives and creating marketplaces that drive the creation of digital commodities. Right now, most of those are AI-based, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

Unlike traditional tech platforms that hoard proprietary models, energy and data, Bittensor encourages openness and collaboration by letting anyone contribute or compete to build better AI.

That structure leads to what Grantis described as a powerful economic flywheel, “You don’t have to build a product, raise money and sell it to customers before you get paid. On Bittensor, you build something useful, and if the network agrees, you start earning emissions—real value—on day one.”

A Startup Incubator Is Building Subnets for Bittensor

Grantis co-founded Contango after he launched and sold a crypto media company in the early 2020s. Contango started as a private syndicate investing