- Covenant AI said it was leaving Bittensor because the network’s governance no longer reflects its stated commitment to decentralization.
- Founder Sam Dare said the split was driven by a loss of confidence in how power is exercised within the ecosystem.
Covenant AI departs Ask, my dearThe company is framing the decision as a violation of principle rather than a routine ecosystem dispute.
In a statement published on X، قال المؤسس Sam Dare إن العهد لم يعد قادرًا على الاستمرار في البناء على Bittensor لأن هيكل إدارة الشبكة يتعارض مع اللامركزية التي تدعي علنًا أنها تدعمها. The language was sharp and clearly intentional.
The promise that no single entity would control the network was the core idea that brought builders, miners, auditors and investors into the ecosystem, Deere said, then added that that promise has proven false.
Covenant says the basic premise no longer holds
This is a serious accusation, especially coming from one of the most popular teams on the network. Covenant said he spent his time working on Bittensor out of the belief that You have a model Training should not be under the control of one party.
The team pointed to Covenant-72B, which it describes as the largest decentralized example of LLM pre-training ever, as evidence that it has pursued this vision in practice.
This work also makes Covenant one of the most visible and important subnets in the Bittensor ecosystem. So this is not a fringe project that quietly walks away. He is a prominent constructor who argues that the reality of governance no longer matches the founding narrative.
Launching is about control, not product failure
Dare identified Bittensor co-founder Jacob Steeves, also known as Const, as the main reason for leaving. According to the statement, Steves was asserting his authority over the subnet in an attempt to regain control of Covenant after it had gone beyond what the team believed could be managed centrally.
This shifts the focus of the story away from the symbolic price reactions and back to the more important issue. Al-Ahed does not leave because its product failed or because the market shifted. She is leaving because she no longer believes Bittensor operates according to the standards of decentralization that justified building there in the first place.





