What is Subtensor?
Subtensor is the blockchain layer of the Bittensor network. It's the on-chain component that records state, processes transactions, and coordinates the incentive mechanism.
Bittensor's Blockchain Layer
Subtensor is built on Substrate, the same framework that powers Polkadot. This gives it:
- • Forkless upgrades. The runtime can be upgraded without hard forks
- • Queryable metadata. The chain describes its own interface
- • Modular pallets. Functionality organized into discrete modules
What Subtensor Stores
Some data is stored on-chain (queryable anytime). Other values are computed at runtime during epoch processing and not stored directly.
Stored On-Chain
- • Balances and stakes
- • Weight matrices from validators
- • Neuron UIDs and permits
- • Subnet configurations
Computed at Runtime
- • Ranks, trust, consensus
- • Incentive and dividend splits
- • Emission amounts per neuron
- • Yuma consensus calculations
You can query storage directly at any time. Computed values like ranks, incentive, and dividends are calculated during epoch processing and written to storage, where they persist until the next epoch overwrites them. To access values from previous epochs, you need a historical/archive node or an indexer API.
Learn More About Bittensor
This documentation focuses on Subtensor specifically. For broader Bittensor topics: