CrunchDAO Facilitates Bittensor Mining for ML Community
CrunchDAO, a decentralized machine learning intelligence layer, is expanding access to Bittensor mining for its community, which comprises over 11,000 machine learning engineers and more than 1,200 PhDs. The platform aims to enable coordinators to mine Bittensor subnets by managing the technical infrastructure, allowing the community to concentrate on model development.
This initiative by CrunchDAO preserves Bittensor's decentralized ethos by abstracting away the complexities of blockchain technology. This approach benefits contributors who might otherwise be deterred by the coordination overhead. Instead of recruiting existing crypto-native miners, CrunchDAO is onboarding new participants from enterprise and academic machine learning backgrounds, thereby increasing the diversity of intelligence contributed to subnets without requiring contributors to possess blockchain expertise.
Understanding Bittensor and Subnet Mining
Bittensor is a decentralized, open-source blockchain network designed to establish a global marketplace for artificial intelligence. It incentivizes users to share computing power, data, and AI models. Mining on Bittensor involves contributing computational resources and machine learning models to the network's various subnets. These subnets are specialized AI services that compete to solve specific problems.
The subnet architecture of Bittensor provides a highly compatible environment for deploying collective intelligence. Consequently, mining on revenue-generating Bittensor subnets is a natural fit for the Crunch community, positioning Bittensor's subnets as another class of "customers" for Crunch's collective intelligence efforts.
"The majority of Crunch’s community are data scientists and ML engineers from enterprise and academic backgrounds who want to contribute to the decentralized AI without becoming blockchain experts. Our role is to unify the compatible opportunities and abstract away some of the decentralization complexity so they can focus purely on what they do best: building better models," said Jean Herelle, Founder at CrunchDAO.
CrunchDAO's Meta-Modeling Layer for Bittensor Subnets
CrunchDAO employs a meta-modeling approach that leverages collective intelligence principles. This methodology involves building ensemble models from diverse contributor submissions, which consistently outperform individual predictions.
By aggregating models from hundreds of independent machine learning engineers, CrunchDAO generates robust intelligence streams that harness the wisdom of crowds. The combined predictions from these diverse contributors often surpass individual expert forecasts. This collective intelligence methodology is directly applicable to Bittensor subnet mining, where Crunch Coordinators aggregate community submissions into ensemble models. These ensemble models deliver more reliable and diverse intelligence to the network. Any subnet creator or coordinator has the potential to establish a modeling market that purchases mining slots, effectively acting as a meta-layer or a "super-miner."
This strategic move addresses a significant talent bottleneck within decentralized AI. While traditional academic and institutional machine learning scientists possess deep expertise in model development, the inherent complexities of Web3, such as managing mining slots, staking mechanics, and blockchain infrastructure, have largely excluded this talent pool from participation. This exclusion represents a considerable cost, as decentralized AI offers ML researchers advantages that centralized labs cannot provide, including economic ownership, open experimentation, and global recognition directly linked to real-world model performance.
By abstracting away blockchain complexities through CrunchDAO's coordinator infrastructure, these scientists can dedicate their efforts to their core competency: building superior models. This not only creates an additional revenue stream for ML practitioners but also channels much-needed specialized intelligence into decentralized ecosystems, thereby mitigating the acute talent deficit in decentralized AI.
CrunchDAO facilitates a new generation of contributors by bridging academic AI expertise with decentralized infrastructure, enabling them to access other intelligence networks without compromising decentralization principles.
Coordinator Participation and Further Information
Subnet operators interested in launching a coordinator node are encouraged to direct their inquiries to coordinators@crunchdao.com.
Additional details regarding the Crunch Protocol Testnet, along with updates and community discussions, are available through their Discord server and X (formerly Twitter) account.
About CrunchDAO
CrunchDAO is a decentralized machine learning intelligence layer that connects over 11,000 data scientists and engineers with businesses and institutions. Its purpose is to solve predictive challenges across various industries, ranging from quantitative finance to genomics. Through open modeling markets, organizations gain access to thousands of competing models that are evaluated solely on their performance. Contributors, in turn, earn rewards based on their results. With more than 35,000 models deployed and proven clients including ADIA Lab and the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, CrunchDAO makes elite AI expertise liquid, transparent, and accessible.

