What τ (TAO) is, and what it is used for

The unit everything is priced in

Every subnet's α has a price only in τ: the pool's τ reserve divided by its α reserve. There is no dollar on the chain, and no subnet is priced against another except through τ.

USD figures use an external TAO/USD rate (CoinGecko), never used in pool, stake or yield math. The rate in the site header is that one. Every figure that does chain arithmetic on Taosis is in τ.

Where new τ comes from

The chain mints τ every block as emission and splits it between the subnets to pay for the work scored each tempo. It reaches a subnet through its pool — injected beside α, or spent buying α when there is more τ than α to pair it with.

Holding τ in a wallet earns none of that. Staking it does: into a subnet, which buys that subnet's α, or onto root, which stays one-to-one and takes a stake-weighted cut of every subnet's validator emission.

What τ is spent on

Buying α puts τ into a subnet's pool. A transaction carries a network fee in τ. Registering a new subnet has a lock cost in τ. All of it is paid from a coldkey's free balance — the τ that is not staked anywhere.

Stake is recorded against a validator's hotkey, but the validator can never move or withdraw it. Staking changes what your τ is exposed to, not who controls it.

What Taosis shows of it

An account page shows a wallet's free τ (spendable, not staked) and its staked value; the explorer works out whether an address is a coldkey or a hotkey before saying what it holds. The Portfolio page shows the same free balance beside root and α positions, read from the chain by the Taosis API.