Learn·Risk
How an outsider can take ownership of a subnet
A challenger's hotkey must clear 18% of a subnet's eligible α on its own and out-score every other hotkey, the owner's included, on a subnet at least a year old — a bar that moves as you watch it.
Published 2026-09-17 · updated 2026-09-28
The rule, in the chain's own terms
A subnet's owner is a coldkey recorded on chain, SubnetOwner. The runtime scores every hotkey on the subnet by the matured conviction of the locks on it: every lock placed on the same hotkey adds to its score, but scores do not add up across hotkeys. The owner's own locks (OwnerLock and DecayingOwnerLock) count too, on the owner's hotkey (SubnetOwnerHotkey).
Ownership moves only when the top-scoring hotkey of all — the owner's included — holds more than 18% of the subnet's eligible α (α staked out less protocol-held α less α burned) and belongs to another coldkey than the owner's. A challenger over the bar therefore changes nothing while the owner's side out-scores it: it has to clear the bar and out-score the owner's hotkey too.
Two further gates: the subnet must be at least one year old, and only matured conviction counts — locked α that has not yet matured contributes nothing, however large. A gauge at 100% on a young subnet, or below the owner's score, is not eligibility.
Why the bar moves
The denominator is live. α is minted into the subnet every block, so eligible α grows and the same conviction is a smaller share of it tomorrow — a gauge can slip back while nobody unlocks. Burned α is subtracted and pushes the other way.
The numerator moves too: a perpetual lock keeps maturing between reads, and an unlocking lock decays. Progress is a position on a moving line, not a countdown, so Taosis projects every lock forward to the current block.
What changes hands
A completed takeover changes one thing on chain: the coldkey in SubnetOwner. Nobody's α moves; what passes to the new owner is control of the subnet.
From chain state alone Taosis cannot tell a lock takeover from a sale or a coldkey swap — all three end in the same owner change — and says so rather than guessing.
Where Taosis shows it
The Takeover watch page ranks every subnet by progress: the strongest challenger — the hotkey with the most matured conviction among those another coldkey than the owner's owns — its conviction, the owner's side it has to out-score, the α needed and the α still missing, priced in τ. A subnet whose α staked out could not be read is left off rather than ranked at 0%, which would read as safe. The screener's Takeover % column and each subnet page show the same figure, and a subnet page also names the owner's-side hotkey.
The figures refresh with every conviction sync, about every 10 minutes. A high percentage is where the line is now, not a prediction.