TAO Flow | Mechanisms | Subtensor Reference

TAO Flow Distribution

dTAO Emission Flow (per block)

Step 1

~0.5 TAO / block

Logarithmic decay from 21M cap

Step 2

TAO Flow Shares

EMA of stake/unstake activity

Step 3: Liquidity Pools

TAO

reserves

Alpha

tokens

Alpha price = TAO in pool / Alpha in pool

More TAO staked → higher Alpha value

Inject TAO + mint Alpha for distribution

Step 4: Alpha Distribution (per subnet)

Owner Cut

taken first

remaining

Miners

50% of remainder

Validators

50% of remainder

Root Divs

if price > 1τ

Accumulates in Pending* storage until epoch

Step 5: At Epoch

Yuma Consensus

Distribute to wallets by I/D scores

I = incentive (miners) D = dividends (validators) τ = TAO

Example: Who Gets What (one block, one subnet)

0.5τ block emission → Subnet gets 20% share → 10% owner cut → α price = 1.0τ

TAO In: 0.10τ

Owner: 0.01α

Miners: 0.045α

Validators: 0.045α

0.10τ → 0.10α minted → 0.01α owner (10%) → 0.09α remainder → 50/50 split

Legacy Subnets (non-dTAO)

Subnets not yet on dTAO use root network weights for emission shares and distribute TAO directly without liquidity pools.

Key Storage Items

BlockEmission SubnetTaoFlow SubnetTAO SubnetAlphaIn SubnetMovingPrice PendingServerEmission PendingValidatorEmission

Click items to navigate to their reference pages.

The Big Picture

TAO Flow is the market-driven mechanism that decides which subnets get how much of the block emission. It measures net staking activity — subnets attracting net TAO inflows receive larger emission shares. The signal is smoothed with an EMA to prevent volatility from causing wild emission swings.

Why This Matters

TAO Flow directly controls how much each subnet earns. A subnet with a low TAO Flow share receives less emission regardless of its internal validator/miner performance.

Example Scenario

With 50 subnets active and 0.5 TAO per block, the top subnet might get 5% share (0.025 TAO/block ≈ 180 TAO/day). A small subnet with 0.5% share gets 10× less. Stakers drive this by where they allocate capital — subnets with net positive staking flow attract more emission.

Common Questions

Can a subnet lose all emission?: If net staking flow is zero or negative and the EMA decays to the cutoff, the subnet gets near-zero emission. It still exists but earns almost nothing.

Use Cases

Comparing subnet emission potential
Understanding staking flow impact on emissions
Planning stake allocation across subnets
Modeling subnet revenue projections

TAO Flow determines each subnet's share of total block emissions. It uses an exponential moving average (EMA) of net TAO staking inflow/outflow per subnet — subnets attracting more net stake receive more emission. The EMA flow values are offset by a lower limit, raised to a power exponent, and normalized to produce shares.

This runs every block as part of run_coinbase. Subnets must have SubtokenEnabled and have passed their FirstEmissionBlockNumber to be eligible for emission.

Triggers

Every block (computed in run_coinbase during block_step)

Inputs (8)

Item	Type	Role
SubnetTaoFlow SubtensorModule	storage	Net TAO inflow/outflow per subnet per block
SubnetEmaTaoFlow SubtensorModule	storage	EMA of TAO flow used for smoothed emission allocation
FlowEmaSmoothingFactor SubtensorModule	storage	EMA alpha parameter for flow smoothing
FlowNormExponent SubtensorModule	storage	Power exponent for normalization of flow shares
TaoFlowCutoff SubtensorModule	storage	Lower limit cutoff for flow values
NetworksAdded SubtensorModule	storage	Registry of active subnets
SubtokenEnabled SubtensorModule	storage	Whether subnet Alpha token is enabled
FirstEmissionBlockNumber SubtensorModule	storage	Block number after which subnet is eligible for emission

Outputs (2)

Item	Type	Role
SubnetTAO SubtensorModule	storage	TAO allocated to subnet pools based on emission shares
SubnetAlphaIn SubtensorModule	storage	Alpha minted into subnet pools proportional to emission share

Source Files

pallets/subtensor/src/coinbase/run_coinbase.rs

run_coinbase()

pallets/subtensor/src/coinbase/subnet_emissions.rs

get_shares()get_shares_flow()

Formulas

TAO Flow Share

Each subnet's emission share is based on the EMA of net TAO inflow/outflow, offset by a lower limit, power-normalized.

ema_flow[i] = SubnetEmaTaoFlow[i]  // EMA of net staking activity
lower_limit = max(cutoff, min(min(ema_flow), 0))
offset_flow[i] = max(ema_flow[i] - lower_limit, 0)
shares = pow_normalize(offset_flow, FlowNormExponent)

SN 1

45.7%

SN 2

21.7%

SN 3

21.7%

SN 4

6.5%

SN 5

4.3%

Allocation %

TypeScript: computeTaoFlowShare() in yuma-formulas.ts

TAO Flow Calculator

Emission Calculator

See how block emission flows through subnets to participants

Block Emission (TAO)

= 500,000,000 RAO

Subnet Configuration

Subnet	TAO Flow %	Owner Cut %	Pool TAO	Pool Alpha	α Price	Actions
SN1					1.200τ
SN2					0.800τ
SN3					1.000τ

α Price auto-calculates from Pool TAO / Pool Alpha

Emission Breakdown (per block)

Subnet	TAO In	α Minted	Owner	Miners	Validators
SN1	0.2500τ	0.2083α	0.0208α (0.0250τ)	0.0938α (0.1125τ)	0.0938α (0.1125τ)
SN2	0.1500τ	0.1875α	0.009375α (0.007500τ)	0.0891α (0.0712τ)	0.0891α (0.0712τ)
SN3	0.1000τ	0.1000α	0.00e+0α (0.00e+0τ)	0.0500α (0.0500τ)	0.0500α (0.0500τ)
Total	0.5000τ		~0.0325τ	~0.2337τ	~0.2337τ

Your Position

Subnet

Role

Your Share of Incentive %

Your emission per block

0.009375α

≈ 0.0112 TAO value

Per hour (~300 blocks)

3.3750 TAO

Per day (~7,200 blocks)

81.0000 TAO

Flow: Block emission → divided by TAO Flow % → converted to Alpha at pool price → owner cut taken first → remainder split 50/50 between miners/validators.

Try: Change pool TAO to see how Alpha price affects the TAO-equivalent value. Higher-priced Alpha means each token is worth more TAO.

Read the deep dive: TAO Flow

Version History

v290 TAO Flow introduced with dTAO upgrade

v340 EMA smoothing factor adjusted for stability

v360 Flow-based allocation replaced root weight allocation