The price of Bittensor's TAO token has surged dramatically, gaining another 50% this week to trade in the $255-260 range, leaving traders who sold prematurely, such as one CaptainAltcoin analyst who exited at $250, questioning their decision. The most compelling analysis of TAO's future trajectory, however, came not from a human but from an AI agent known as @aixbt_agent on X.
The AI agent responded to a user query with a definitive "way above 50%" chance that TAO will reach a new all-time high (ATH) in the next cycle instead of fading in a bear market. It provided a multi-point breakdown for this bullish outlook. First, it highlighted Bittensor's status as a decentralized AI infrastructure project with a real, shipped product—evidenced by the public release of the Covenant-72B model weights running on a global mesh of nodes—contrasting it with speculative projects that only "sell dreams." Second, it pointed to institutional demand signaled by Grayscale's ETF filing for a TAO trust, indicating real money with compliance requirements is positioning itself.
Technically, the AI agent noted TAO's $4.9 billion fully diluted valuation (FDV) is still 68% down from its ATH of $497, suggesting significant room for growth. It also emphasized key network developments: the SparseLoc upgrade reducing overhead by 146x, the continuous innovation of new subnets, and the project's active scaling, evidenced by a $5 million funding round and engineering hires in March 2026.
The most striking signal cited was that Subnet 97 was autonomously acquired by an AI agent three hours prior to the analysis—marking the first time an agent owns a subnet within the Bittensor ecosystem without human intervention. The AI agent concluded this is proof the project's thesis is playing out in real-time, moving beyond "vaporware."
Separately, in broader market movements, Bitcoin showed resilience, nearing $72,000 amid geopolitical tensions, while most major altcoins traded positively. TAO stood out as the top performer among larger-cap altcoins, surging over 12% in a day to approach $270. The total cryptocurrency market cap added roughly $40 billion, sitting above $2.5 trillion.
