Key Highlights
- TAO token has climbed more than 15% this week, with prices hovering between $289 and $298
- Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s CEO, alongside investor Chamath Palihapitiya, endorsed Bittensor’s distributed AI training approach during the All-In Podcast
- Covenant-72B, featuring 72 billion parameters, represents the largest decentralized pre-training effort ever documented
- Daily trading volume surged to $677 million while open interest climbed to $361 million, marking multi-month peaks
- Grayscale’s application to transform its Bittensor Trust into a spot ETF signals rising institutional appetite
Bittensor (TAO) has experienced significant momentum this week, with the token trading in the $289–$298 range following a 15% seven-day surge. The price action was ignited by remarks on the All-In Podcast featuring NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and prominent investor Chamath Palihapitiya, who examined a groundbreaking achievement in distributed artificial intelligence.
During the discussion, Palihapitiya highlighted a large language model developed entirely through distributed computing infrastructure managed by independent participants. “They successfully trained a 4 billion parameter LLaMA model in a completely distributed manner, with numerous people providing spare computing power,” he explained, describing it as “an incredibly impressive technical achievement.”
Subsequent clarification revealed the actual model to be Covenant-72B, not the 4 billion parameter version mentioned in the podcast. The Opentensor Foundation confirmed that Covenant-72B represents a 72-billion-parameter language model pre-trained through contributions from over 70 global participants utilizing conventional internet-connected hardware. The model posted a 67.1 MMLU score and is detailed in an arXiv research paper from March 2026. This achievement stands as the most extensive decentralized LLM pre-training initiative ever recorded.
Huang offered an affirmative perspective on distributed AI development. “These two approaches aren’t mutually exclusive; they’re complementary,” Huang stated. “That’s absolutely clear.” He positioned proprietary and open-source frameworks as synergistic rather than adversarial.
TAO experienced approximately 5% appreciation in the immediate aftermath of the podcast release, with trading volume nearly doubling within 24 hours.
Market Activity and Derivatives Interest Spike
Blockchain analytics from Santiment indicate Bittensor’s daily trading volume peaked at $677.06 million on Sunday — representing the highest figure recorded since November 7. By week’s end Friday, volume maintained elevated levels at $521.92 million.
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Futures market open interest monitored by CoinGlass expanded to $361.15 million on Monday, climbing from $131.94 million recorded on March 4. Friday’s reading settled at $331.95 million, also approaching multi-month highs.
Growing Institutional Engagement
Grayscale has submitted regulatory filings to convert its Bittensor Trust vehicle into a spot exchange-traded fund. The trust currently trades at a premium to net asset value, which market observers interpret as evidence of increasing institutional demand.
Bittensor has additionally implemented Covenant-72B to stimulate demand across its distributed compute infrastructure, while ongoing modular subnet development continues capturing interest from both retail traders and institutional participants.
From a technical perspective, TAO is currently positioned above its 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day exponential moving averages. The Relative Strength Index registers at 77, indicating overbought conditions. Immediate resistance appears near $305.30, with subsequent upside targets at $341.10 should that threshold be breached.
Technical analyst Ardi identified a right-angled broadening descending wedge formation developing since October, noting that a validated breakout requires a daily closing price above $302. Under that scenario, the next price objective sits in the $360–$370 range.
TAO has appreciated 37% over the trailing seven days and 55.66% across the past month, though it remains 61.13% beneath its all-time peak of $767.68 established in April 2024.
