Original Title: Statement from Covenant AI
Original Author: @covenant_ai
Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: Covenant AI has released a statement announcing its withdrawal from Bittensor and accusing its co-founder Jacob Steeves (Const) of centralizing power within network governance, including actions such as suspending subnet emissions, revoking community governance rights, and exerting pressure through token sales.
Previously, Covenant AI was responsible for the operation of several key subnets, covering aspects such as pre-training, computing power scheduling, and fine-tuning, and completed a large-scale language model collaboratively trained by multiple parties on general-purpose hardware. This achievement drew industry attention and was mentioned by figures such as Jensen Huang and Jack Clark.
The controversy is not one-sided. Some critics have pointed fingers at Covenant AI founder Sam Dare, alleging he sold off approximately 37,000 $TAO tokens; while supporters believe this conflict may push the network toward a more community-oriented governance model.
On the market side, the price of $TAO dropped from about $340 to $286 during the escalation of the incident, then rebounded to $291, accompanied by a significant increase in trading volume.
Discussions surrounding governance structure, power boundaries, and incentive mechanisms are ongoing.
The following is the original text:
The establishment of Covenant AI comes from a simple and firm belief: the training of cutting-edge AI models should not be controlled by any single entity.
Over the past two years, our team has been practicing this vision. Covenant-72B—a model with 72 billion parameters, collaboratively trained by over 70 independent contributors on general-purpose hardware without permission—has become the largest decentralized large model pre-training practice in history. It has gained recognition from the CEO of NVIDIA, been cited by the co-founder of Anthropic, and contributed to a 90% increase in the ecosystem we helped build.
We have never intentionally sought attention. We just want to prove that decentralized training is feasible. And once the results stand on their own, attention naturally follows.
We hope to express the meaning of all this clearly enough.
When a single entity can suspend the emissions of a subnet, strip node owners of control over their community space, publicly "deprecate" projects without processes, and even apply economic pressure through token sales to force compliance from others—this is no longer decentralization, but centralized control dressed in the guise of decentralization.
Every participant in the ecosystem—miners, validators, and investors—should recognize that this power genuinely exists and has already been exercised by Jacob Steeves (Const). These actions are not motivated by maintaining the health of the network but rather to regain control over a team that has become too independent and difficult to manage. A subnet owner who can autonomously establish a community, make independent decisions, and operate without permission poses a threat to those whose power is built on "everyone must depend on him."
The issue of decentralization is not limited to isolated incidents.
Bittensor actually operates on a "triple structure"—three individuals jointly manage the multi-signature privilege required for network upgrades, packaged as "distributed governance." But this is not the case. It resembles more of a "decentralization performance." Jacob Steeves effectively controls this structure, refuses to engage in any substantive power delegation, and at times he deems appropriate, bypasses processes and consensus to unilaterally implement changes. Other relevant personnel act more like legal "shields"—they bear responsibilities and face litigation risks, while the true controllers remain insulated from responsibility.
This network constantly talks about governance and decentralization but has never truly implemented it. Power has never left any one person's hands.
This is the crux of the problem.
The fundamental commitment of Bittensor, which is also a key premise for attracting developers, miners, validators, and investors into this ecosystem, is that it is not controlled by any single entity. But this commitment is not genuine.
In such a reality, we can no longer responsibly continue building on this network. The foundational statement we made to investors—that this infrastructure is decentralized and permissionless—contradicts the actual governance methods. We cannot seek funding, attract talent, or demand community resources on a foundation that could at any moment be shaken by a single will. We do not wish to transfer this risk to those who trust us.
Therefore, despite feeling deeply disappointed, we have decided to announce: Covenant AI will withdraw from the Bittensor network.
In the past few weeks, Jacob Steeves (Const) has taken a series of actions regarding the operation of Covenant AI, which are fundamentally incompatible with the principles claimed by the network. These include suspending emissions from our subnet, stripping us of management rights over our own community channels, unilaterally declaring our subnet infrastructure "deprecated," and applying direct economic pressure through large-scale, public token sales at critical moments of operational conflict.
These decisions were not made through transparent, decentralized consensus but represent punitive actions imposed by a person who has never truly relinquished control while publicly claiming he no longer controls the network.
The mission of Covenant AI has not changed. Decentralized, permissionless AI training is not an exclusive feature of Bittensor but a technological capability that we will continue to advance. Our research, team, models, and vision will continue to move forward together. We are advancing some very important new projects and will soon publicly announce relevant progress.
To our community, miners, and all those who have contributed computing power, time, and faith to Covenant-72B: you have proven something that was once thought impossible. This achievement does not belong to a Discord server nor is it attached to a network's governance structure. It exists in the research itself, the model itself, and this team. No matter where we go next, we will continue to earn your trust.
Decentralization is not a marketing narrative that can be casually overturned when inconvenient. It is a commitment to every builder, miner, and investor— a commitment that no one can impose on others what we have experienced. Either truly achieve decentralization or stop pretending.
—Sam Dare, Founder of Covenant AI
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