Lucas Shin

The Bittensor Halt: Centralization Saves the Day?

This will be a short update on Bittensor’s recent chain halt, focusing on how it happened, how it was fixed, and what it exposes about the network. I’ll assume you have a general sense of what Bittensor is and how it works. Let’s get into it.

What Happened?

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On May 20, Bittensor’s network froze completely at block 5,611,658.

To understand how this happened, you’ll need some context. Specifically, you need to know what Substrate is. Think of Substrate like McDonald’s franchise system. Instead of creating your own recipes, supply chains, and operating procedures from scratch (which is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive), you use their proven foundation and customize it for

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Thanks for the article!

While I’m not a fan of centralization, I believe that in the early stages like where Bittensor is now, it’s acceptable to be centralized to quickly fix major bugs and issues. The most important thing is that they genuinely move toward decentralization over time. The bigger the protocol gets, the harder it will be to shift to a decentralized model later.