Learn·Bittensor
What root (SN0) is, and why it has no price
Root is where τ is staked without buying anything: one-to-one, no pool, no price — and a cut of every subnet's validator emission.
Published 2026-09-17 · updated 2026-09-25
One-to-one, at any size
Every subnet's α comes out of a pool. Root's does not: staking to root converts τ to root α one-to-one whatever the amount, and back again on unstaking. No reserve moves, so there is no slippage, no swap fee and no price.
That is why no price tolerance applies on root. Root does pay a yield, but not the way a subnet does: see the root yield below.
Why the market columns are blank
The chain still stores pool-shaped fields for netuid 0, but they describe nothing anyone can act on. Its moving price reads 0 — the chain's not-applicable, not a measurement. It has no α to pair emission with, so the chain keeps no emission entry for it, and it runs no incentive mechanism.
Root is outside the deregistration queue, and its τ is not counted in the network's TAO in pools: it is staked, not pooled. Its market cap is simply the α staked to it, valued one-to-one.
The root cut
Each subnet's validator emission is split between people staking τ on root and holders of the subnet's α, by stake weight: γ·R ÷ (γ·R + α in pool + α staked out), where γ is the chain's TaoWeight and R the τ staked on root.
TaoWeight is a governance parameter, so the split can change. Taosis computes the figure from current inputs rather than the chain's cached value, which goes stale on emptied subnets, and blanks it when its read of TaoWeight is stale.
The root yield
The root cut does not land in root stakers' stake at the epoch. A validator's root dividends, net of its take, go into its basket fund, and reach its root stakers when they claim. The chain keeps one return series per fund, BasketTwr: it starts at 1 and grows by every dividend at its value when paid.
Taosis reads that series every hour and compares the latest reading with the one nearest 24 hours earlier. Growth g over a window of about 7,200 blocks gives Root APR (simple) = g × 7,200·365 ÷ the window's exact length, and Root APY (compounded) = the same daily return compounded over a year, as if claimed and restaked every day. Both are in τ.
A flat series is a verified 0.00%: no root dividend was paid into the fund in the window. When the chain holds no fund for a validator, when no reading from a day earlier exists yet, when the fund started or restarted inside the window, or when no reading under 3 hours old exists, the yield is — and says which.
Where Taosis shows it
The screener hides root behind a toggle and blanks every pool-shaped figure for it; the Root cut % column on every other subnet is the split above. Root's own page shows what is staked to it and its tempo, with dashes where a pool would be.
The validators directory shows each validator's root stake and its Root APR (simple) and Root APY (compounded) beside its main-subnet yield.
A wallet's account page lists its stake on root as a position labelled root (SN0), beside its α positions on the subnets.
Read next
APR vs APY on Bittensor
Two ways to annualize the same staking return: APR multiplies one period's return by the periods in a year, APY compounds it. Taosis shows both, labelled, from one rule.
What dTAO is
Under dTAO a stake is a position in one subnet's pool, bought with τ and priced in it — not a share of the whole network.
How emission is split
New τ is allocated per subnet every block, paired with α where the pool allows and spent buying α where it does not — with root stakers and miner burn taking their share.