🚨 Bittensor Exposed - A Behind The Scenes Leak

[00:00:00]Bit Tensor has the opportunity to be exposed to hundreds of millions of people. In today's episode, we have to discuss the one subnet that is making it all happen.

[00:00:10]>> This is the hidden marketing engine behind all things Bit Tensor and Tao. If you haven't heard of Bit Cast yet, you will.

[00:00:20]All right, today we have a very special guest. We have Tom Blears of Subnet 93 from Bit Tensor. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:26]>> Hi guys, yeah, thanks for having me on.

[00:00:27]Excited to get into it.

[00:00:29]>> Lovely. So, Subnet 93 is called Bit Cast and they are the hidden marketing engine behind all things Bit Tensor and we will dive into a little bit more what they are working on. But, Tom, maybe you could just give us a simple simple elevator pitch. What exactly is Bit Cast?

[00:00:43]>> Yeah, sure. So, um essentially we're a social media marketing subnet. Um we connect brands with high-impact YouTubers and X creators. Um and our AI essentially checks every piece of content um on behalf of the brand.

[00:00:58]And it checks it to make sure that the messaging meets the brand's messaging.

[00:01:03]And then issues payments to creators based on performance. So, it's very different to how the general um creator marketing space works at the moment.

[00:01:12]Um and essentially in a nutshell, what that actually results in is loads and loads of really high-quality content being created for brands, all managed by AI, and it means you can get hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of pieces of content completely automated end-to-end, and you can publish that within about an hour.

[00:01:31]Uh so, it's extremely powerful and a great use of AI.

[00:01:34]>> Yeah, I mean, we uh we immediately loved the idea of Bit Cast. Obviously, we are content creators. We saw a huge problem that it's going to solve within our industry about like uh you know, fake content, fake ad spend, all these things, you know, TikTok, Instagram, whatever.

[00:01:48]Um so, we saw the idea right away. But, how did you see the idea? Give us your background. Are you a creator? How did you conceptualize this and make it a reality?

[00:01:56]>> So, well, again, I guess a good place to start here is um that my co-founder is my brother Will.

[00:02:03]Um and really it was a combination of the two of us coming together from very very different walks of life really, I suppose, like from a professional standpoint. So, um I'll go back to my experience. So, I've worked in finance for the last 15 years, UK pension space, quite um run-of-the-mill, but delivering high-performance software within a very regulated industry.

[00:02:25]But, on the side, I was actually a content creator. Um so, it was a side hustle, and I was uh you know, working with different brands, getting lots of brand deals, um and I really got an a feel and exposure to how the industry works. Um but I also was looking at it thinking, "This system is really time-intensive.

[00:02:44]I've got to speak to 20 different brands, and only one of them will actually come through and actually give me a contract at the end of it." And I I thought it was really really wasteful on the time side.

[00:02:54]Um but you know, that that was that was sort of how I got involved and exposed to content creation. But, then on the flip side of that, um my brother, Will, he was a developer for a fintech, um and he was working out in Canada.

[00:03:13]Um and COVID hit, and he went down to South America, and he bumped into a BitTensor OG called Fish.

[00:03:21]And these two were working together. Um so, in case you don't know Fish, he's the founder of Liam.

[00:03:27]Um and these two were working together in a hostel in South America. And Fish started telling Will about BitTensor, and he was like, "This is pretty interesting. I don't fully understand it. It's super complicated." Kind of mirrors how a lot of people come across BitTensor initially.

[00:03:44]Um and then Will about a year later came back to the UK, left that conversation, came back to the UK, and started looking for a job and then Giles Foster from Tensora reached out to Will, saw his CV, thought he was a good fit to become a BitTensor miner. So, very strange that two BitTensor OGs totally independently reached out to Will.

[00:04:09]So, Will decided to give mining on BitTensor a go um and uh after about a year of mining, he was actually the first miner in a Tensora um which is a big mining collective um that based out of Manchester.

[00:04:24]And um after about a year, Will came to me and said he wants to set up a subnet but he didn't have he wasn't sure exactly what he wanted to do. And the two of us put our heads together and obviously me saying to him like I think social media marketing could be improved massively.

[00:04:38]Um we sort of put our heads together to see how we could come up with a solution using the BitTensor blockchain and incentives and the AI tools that we have available to us in BitTensor to uh yeah, to basically launch BitCast.

[00:04:51]>> Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:04:52]>> Sorry, that was a that was a long story but yeah, it's >> No, I I think it it really helps, you know, when people are watching this episode learning about look, you got the creation side, you have the you know, financial side but you also have the engineering side as well in terms of how you're contributing to BitTensor itself.

[00:05:06]And it is interesting because I think when most people hear BitTensor, they think it's just AI. You know, you have your compute, your inference, your AI agents but big there's something about BitCast that just feels a bit different.

[00:05:16]Like although you are using AI, it's not just a pure AI play.

[00:05:21]So, how are you breaking that mold and why could why is it that BitCast couldn't exist without BitTensor? And as a little bit of a side question here, I want to see do you see BitCast helping BitTensor move from purely just an AI network to something that you know, maybe millions of people end up just using every single day?

[00:05:40]>> Okay, so the the the first one is yeah, we're not we're not building we're not we're not using the incentive mechanism to build AI. We're a we're a platform that uses AI to to go about our business.

[00:05:51]Um and you know, I I I I guess this is when we launched the subnet, we we got a lot of pushback people saying, "We don't really understand why this should be a Bittensor subnet." And And my my view of how Bittensor works and what it's going to be in the future is that it can do anything. Like I think like it's just a new corporate structure where like it's a really good way of coordinating loads of people from around the globe, bringing all the best talent in, and it's a really good way of producing products and services in a really seamless way. Um it it was designed for design like developing AI, but I think naturally what you're going to start seeing is more and more subnets starting where it's actually well, this isn't about building AI. This is this is a just a a really really efficient mechanism where you don't have a HR team who's having to manage all these different people. You just reward people based on performance.

[00:06:49]Um and yeah, so I mean, yeah, we're we're not We use AI in our processes, yes. Um but we're not essentially AI. Um and I suppose could we exist without Bittensor?

[00:07:05]Um no, because it literally it's the glue that holds the whole system together. Like it it it it manages all of our different um contributors or creators or you know, whatever you want or miners. Um and it's just a really really uh like hands-off system and like um hands-off sort of network that you can plug in and and and push your business idea forward. Um so, yeah.

[00:07:33]>> It's interesting because obviously at the start of the episode, I was like, "Bittensor has the opportunity to be exposed to hundreds of millions of people, right?" So, obviously Bitcast is helping do that by driving this content creation engine to spread the word about BitTensor and subnets, but I also feel another way that's happening is that exactly what you just said there. Bitcast is building in AI, but it's not AI. And I actually think that BitTensor needs that. It needs more subnets that are less complicated for non-crypto people, for even non-AI people to really understand the power of what BitTensor can do. It's not just building AI companies. It can build anything like you said. So, I think it's kind of it's a double meaning there in terms of being exposed and helping expose BitTensor to hundreds of millions of people. But, then when we turn back to actually what Bitcast does.

[00:08:20]So, Josh and I are creators. We've been full-time creators for over 5 years.

[00:08:24]So, we understand how it works, but maybe you can tell tell the listeners right now. What is the benefit to the brand when they come to Bitcast? What is the benefit to the creator and the platform, Bitcast? So, so why would a why would a brand choose Bitcast over, you know, just spending some money on TikTok ads or something?

[00:08:43]>> I mean, the the most performing ads in the world are in the hands of creators at the moment. That's because they're the people that bring um services and goods. They make them relatable. They make them, you know, desirable and understandable. Um and what we do um is well, the way it works is a brand would come to Bitcast and they would they would say, "Right, we want videos on YouTube or we want posts on X." And we Let's Let's do the video example. We want videos on YouTube and um we want you to talk about these five points and this is the video format. The video needs to be about this topic, etc., etc. Um and this this brief then goes onto our system and all the creators see it.

[00:09:26]Um and all the creators on the network can then see the brief, make content about it, release it on YouTube.

[00:09:35]And the clever part is that AI watches every single piece of content. It evaluates it, make sure it's matching the brand's messaging, make sure it's accurate, and then it rewards the creators based on how much exposure they can generate.

[00:09:49]Now, why would a brand want this?

[00:09:53]Um I guess you've got to think about like if a brand wanted, let's say let's just say 10 YouTubers to talk about them.

[00:10:01]That is so much admin work to actually execute that in a first instance. You would need to go and find these 10 creators, reach out to them, actually vet them and make sure they're not full of fake engagement.

[00:10:14]Then you need to go through rate negotiations, contracts. You've got to check every single piece of content as they release it.

[00:10:21]And then you've got to issue payments, and you really really like the the the content game um the it it it because it's all run on vanity metrics, it's really hard to tell what's real and what's not. Um so our system basically solves all of those problems. It means that you can get 10, 50, 100 different creators with like 1 hour's of effort, 1 hour of effort.

[00:10:43]You've just got to get your brief online and published. Let the system take care of all of it. Um and it's not run on fixed fees. So, creators, you know, they they they basically see the brief, they make the content, and they get paid if their video does really really well, they get paid more. If it doesn't do as well, they get paid less.

[00:11:01]So, from a brand's point of view, they're basically paying for guaranteed exposure.

[00:11:05]Um on the creator side though, again, it comes back to you know, the the time that it takes to actually speak to these brands. Are they going out and finding these deals? Or they're you know, they're putting their pitches towards different brands to say that we can work with you. That's a huge amount of admin that these brands no longer need to do. Or sorry, these creators no longer need to do. They can come on to BidCast, and if they see And these are all really really good quality creators. If they see a brief that they think's a good fit for their audience and they can actually get people to engage and watch these videos because that's how they get paid, they'll make really good videos based on it. And they don't have to worry about when will I get paid, will I get paid? Do I waste a lot of time here and not have the contract come through, etc. So, it's it works on both sides. It's it's basically a trust layer in the middle that connects them both.

[00:11:58]>> It's it's win-win-win.

[00:11:59]>> Yeah.

[00:11:59]>> Like yeah.

[00:12:00]>> You know, Bitcast is winning here. The bra- the brands are what like an hour, you know, to the to, you know, put out a brief and then you had the best content creators making work uh content for you and then the creators actually earning.

[00:12:13]Like that is that's just it's genius and it's filtering out all the noise that exists, the botted views and all this other things. Like so, what Bitcast here is, you know, it's it's really revolutionary. And if you guys aren't paying attention too closely, basically what they're doing is they're turning viewership on YouTube and X and rewarding people in Tao while they educate people around Bitensor. So, that's currently. So, I would kind of want to ask you what sort of brands or, you know, companies are already working with Bitcast and, you know, what are the ex- expansion plans with what you guys are currently advertising? You know, is it just going to be crypto specific? Is it just going to be Bitensor?

[00:12:51]And, you know, I also want to add on to this question here, too.

[00:12:55]Cuz you mentioned something around how you're rewarded with Tao. But, what if you're not What if you're a creator who doesn't have a wallet and, you know, just wants to receive just regular money, like actual money? Is that going to be something that'll be implemented as well?

[00:13:07]>> Yeah, I mean, ri- right now, we've actually formulated our road map to get it um published in the next few weeks.

[00:13:14]Um but, it's funnily enough, like loads of things that you just mentioned are are are sort of on the road map.

[00:13:20]Um but, I I suppose let let's start with the who we're working with currently.

[00:13:24]So, up until sort of the beginning of this year, we were working with just BitSensor subnets. Um, we, you know, you've got a sort of a chicken and egg sort of situation. We need creators before we can work with big big brands.

[00:13:39]We now have, uh, I think we've got 300 300 odd creators, uh, between X and YouTube now.

[00:13:47]Um, we're growing. I think we've grown 500% since January. So, like the network is growing extremely quickly.

[00:13:53]So, yeah, up until the end of last year we were working with BitSensor. We we started opening up the doors sort of February to start speaking to some bigger brands. And we signed with Bitget. And they've been increasing their budget month on month since working with us, which I think shows that we really do have product market fit. They're allocating more of their monthly budget to Bitcast and spending less elsewhere.

[00:14:17]Um, and we've got case studies around that. And over the last few weeks, uh, I've been hitting conferences and going and showing exchanges, hardware wallets, neo banks what we can do.

[00:14:28]And yeah, so we're we're basically now only, uh, as of the last couple of weeks we're really actually looking to bring in this business. And it's going really really well. Um, I can't say more than that. But, um, you know, we we should be seeing a lot more brands from outside of the BitSensor ecosystem starting to use Bitcast.

[00:14:47]Um, and as for where we're going, we've been working with BitSensor, working with outside of BitSensor, but we're also eyeing up moving to web 2. Um, obviously to do that, we need to have other payment options available.

[00:15:02]Um, and we're just working on a go-to-market strategy around that. But, um, in the interim we're probably going to have integrating with Thorchain pretty soon.

[00:15:10]We're going to have, uh, payments in many different tokens if that's what creators want. And then beyond that, yeah, we're we're going to have to get fiat involved. Um, so that so that web 2 and web 2 creators can start to use the platform.

[00:15:23]>> Very cool.

[00:15:23]>> Did I miss anything off there? It was quite >> Well, that's really That's really cool.

[00:15:26]I like the fact that you know you you mentioned ThorChain and the fiat payments and all other things that are going to be integrated. I think that's really going to attract even more creators and more brands outside of just the Bit- BitEnt ecosystem.

[00:15:36]>> Yeah, and I think that's where the real growth opportunity is. And speaking of growth opportunity, you know, we always want to hear about metrics with Subnets to separate the hype from the real builders. Um you already touched on the fact that you have like 300 over 300 creators in the BitCast ecosystem. Do you have any more metrics you can share with us in terms of total amount of views or engagements or perhaps total amount of customers or projections and any revenue figures that you can share with us as well?

[00:16:01]>> And we we are strong believers in I mean I'm from a traditional finance background and I'm very very strong believer in making profit and being profitable.

[00:16:11]Um and I'm also big believer on being very very transparent. So we released this dashboard last week.

[00:16:19]Um and essentially it's all the stats of the whole BitCast network all in one place. So everyone who wants to dive in and have a look at what we've we've been doing it's all here for you to see.

[00:16:32]Um But yeah, so this is um this is the overview. So you've got 348 creators across the two platforms.

[00:16:41]Um and we've got an audience of 3.45 million now. As you can see, like I said, we we've we've really expanded very very quickly since well, it says November here, but I think the the real growth started around January.

[00:16:55]Um and you can also see that the stats for um you know, how how basically the views are growing as we're bringing on more creators and working with more brands.

[00:17:06]Um let me show you this. So I and you you've got the the two platforms here.

[00:17:11]So 72 YouTubers, 3 million. So we've got eight This this is what we like to look at. Now, this is very very different to how the industry actually works. But, the industry is sort of anchored towards views. We like watch hours because this is actual real people spending their time watching um videos.

[00:17:32]Um and you've got all the stats in here as well around around what's going on.

[00:17:37]Uh so, yeah, we've generated 1.19 million views. Uh this is the CoinGecko metrics.

[00:17:45]And yeah, and on here again uh you've got 213 million, sorry, 2.13 million followers on X, 275 creators, and you can see all the stats in here as well. And as you can see, it's it's all just growing up to the right. Um and again, you've got the revenue here. So, um we've really only been selling our products uh properly since the start of this year, and we've generated um almost 200,000 uh dollars in Alpha, sorry, in in in in USD.

[00:18:16]And then, this is our split between what we hold in Tao and what we started buying back. Um yeah, that was a very quick whistle-stop tour. Is any any questions any questions you guys want to dive into?

[00:18:27]>> that's beautiful. Like, we love to see the transparency. We love to see the dashboard. We love to see the numbers going up. Um I think what you've built is it's obviously super early stages, but you're seeing massive validation there. So, yeah, props to you guys.

[00:18:38]>> Yeah, it's very impressive data that you're seeing there on the screen. I mean, look, it's up and to the right.

[00:18:42]>> So, I think you guys have become one of the very first subnets to fully offset minor emissions with real brand revenue, which is really impressive. And that's going to lead to the flywheel effect.

[00:18:51]So, maybe you can let us know, how do those numbers specifically that we just saw on screen there, how does that translate into being a subnet 93 Bitcast Alpha token holder? Like, how do how does it benefit us?

[00:19:02]>> Uh I mean, going back to my background in traditional finance, all I understand is basically profitability and and making a sustainable business. Um so, I don't really I'm not really a crypto bro in that respect. And the way that we designed it is um, so we we take a budget from the brand. Let's Let's call it 10K and they want to run some YouTube videos. We take 10K and we'd make that budget available to creators.

[00:19:29]Creators draw down from that budget and when that budget ends, the the creators stop getting paid. Within that, there is a profit margin built in.

[00:19:39]Um, so that every basic every dollar that comes through Bitcast, there's profit for the protocol and that's actually used to buy back the token and we just we just hold it and we're going to be locking it up um, when the new um, conviction mechanism comes in from BitTensor.

[00:19:55]Um, so there's going to be maximum transparency for all investors and we're going to be locking up all of our revenue.

[00:20:01]Um, and I I and I it is very very similar. We've not really looked at um, our Stitch platform, which is our X platform, too much just yet on this call on this on this chat, but the um, the way that that one works is a brand will give us, let's say, $2,000 to run a campaign. We would actually charge the brand more than that and there's a profit margin built in on top of that that's again, it's all used to buy back and hold the token. So, deflating the supply.

[00:20:31]Um, and and I probably should probably mention as well that right now we Yes, we are offsetting minor emissions and what we're paying out to creators, which is great, but our main focus is growth. So, it's it's we're in a really strong position where we're actually growing really really fast and offsetting minor emissions. When we reach a certain point, then we can start looking at increasing our profitability, but that's not our main focus right now. We want to have thousands of creators on all in one platform where all the brands from in Web3, web 2 is their go-to for content creation. And to get there, we need to have loads of really good quality creators. So, that is what we're building towards and that's why we're seeing the the graph just going up and up and up with looking at all the stats around creators. Um and yeah, that that So, that's our main goal at the moment.

[00:21:25]>> Yeah, for sure. So, if I was a creator and I was watching this episode, how do I get involved with Bitcast? What are the steps that I need to take?

[00:21:31]>> Um really easy. I guess it depends on I say really easy. No, you've got to have a really good audience and you've got to be a good quality creator. But, if you are, joining Bitcast is the easy part.

[00:21:40]Um So, if you're a YouTuber, you can head to Bitcast.network um and it's one-click sign-up um you know, you can connect your YouTube account and start making videos based on what briefs brands have published. Um if you're an X creator, we have a platform called Stitch 3 um and it basically maps out ecosystems.

[00:22:05]So, you can search your handle on that site and if you can find your handle, you've obviously been involved in the conversation. Um you can and you can join and start mining on Bitcentral.

[00:22:17]>> Right. So, that's that's pretty cool.

[00:22:19]You know, we've been mining on X and YouTube. And you know, I think it previously may have been a few extra steps for us to follow. So, it's it's it's great that it seems to be more of a one-click process for creators to get involved. So, if you guys are watching this episode and want to get involved, check out Bitcast and you know, what they're building cuz could be a way for you to earn some extra Tao. We know that Tao is going to go up and up into the right, right?

[00:22:39]>> That's right.

[00:22:40]>> So, right now you guys are >> 100% >> primarily YouTube focused uh but and X as well. But, it does seem like there could be some discussions around expanding to TikTok, maybe Instagram. How will that open the door for more creators to participate? And what kind of growth in watch hours can we expect and especially revenue? Like, what are you guys targeting over the next 12 to 18 months?

[00:23:02]>> On the revenue front, we're aiming to be at 2 million >> [snorts] >> dollars annual recurring revenue by the end of the year.

[00:23:09]I think that's probably a conservative estimate, but that's our goal at the moment.

[00:23:14]And on like we what basically the process that we're streamlining and improving isn't just for YouTube and X, obviously. It's for all social medias.

[00:23:28]Every social media brings with it its own challenges and as with anything in Bittensor, as soon as you release an incentive mechanism, people are trying to break it. People are trying to game it. People are trying to beat you.

[00:23:41]So, we are always looking at ways that we can integrate new social medias and we've got two in development at the moment that we're pretty confident we've nailed and got it solid.

[00:23:53]But, that requires a lot of testing on our end to make sure that we're not releasing something that's exploitable.

[00:23:58]So, yeah, we've we've got we are going to be expanding to new social medias and coming up with our strategies for bringing in business that's appropriate for those social medias because, you know, social medias aren't just all about crypto. They can be about, I don't know, they could be about anything. Sports brands, you know, for example. So, we're we're essentially just working out what those incentive mechanisms like will will introduce them when the time's right and once we've got a team around them to push them forward properly. Yeah, it's it's it's looking really really exciting what we've got coming up in the next 6 months.

[00:24:34]>> Yeah, for sure. I mean, expecting or targeting 2 million dollars of ARR at the end of this year, that's that's pretty significant. We always like to see Bittensor subnets that are actually making real money and growing. It looks like you guys have the Bittensor marketing thing on lock, right? You got all the best creators, all the best partners, all the best brands within Bittensor, but I think the blue sky opportunity for us here with you guys at Bitcast and even just getting the word out for Bitensor is what's what's next for Bitcast. You know, if you go on the Stitch platform right now, you can already see, you know, that there's prediction markets, there's maybe AI agents coming soon. So, what can you tell us in terms of what ecosystems are you guys going to be expanding to? And are there any big brand deals we can expect coming up?

[00:25:18]>> I mean I posted about it recently and I think this is a really big accomplishment for us because we we released Stitch 3, which is our X platform.

[00:25:30]Um and essentially how it works is that we map out ecosystems, we map out who's part of the conversation, um and then basically say, all right, well, which X accounts are allowed to create content and get rewarded for it.

[00:25:45]Um and we did it we did it for Bitensor and we did it really successfully for Bitensor.

[00:25:51]And then we're like, right, okay, well, how do we how do we scale this? Um and we we launched our prediction markets um ecosystem, which is the one I'm showing you at the moment. And I've got to be honest, I was I I I I knew the model worked, but I what I didn't know is if we could replicate it.

[00:26:06]And I think as of as of, you know, we launched it a few weeks ago and as of this week, um we now, let me have a look. I think the stats are we now got like 60 miners from this new ecosystem. And I think what Yeah, we got 92 miners. That's that's growing so quickly. Um and what essentially this means is that this model is scalable.

[00:26:29]Um this is a really efficient way of bringing and identifying creators to talk about brands. And we already have brands coming to us from within the prediction market space asking us to do marketing for them. This is after we were launching 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago.

[00:26:45]So, this gets me quite excited because the amount of ecosystems on X is kind limitless.

[00:26:53]Um and there's so many applications for this tool um that we're you know as with anything you develop something you think it's great and you test it. You've got your game plan but then as you get into the the weeds and as as you actually got it live you start to realize there's there's other people who want to use this for other things.

[00:27:14]Um so I'm talking about marketing agencies they want us to basically give those the give them the data for different niches. And these are things that are now coming to like as business opportunities I I hadn't even thought about. Um so yeah the the stitch side is is essentially it's not just going to say it's easy but the route here is basically we're going to start bringing in different ecosystems.

[00:27:37]Um as you mentioned yeah we've got AI agents coming up soon but we've identified another five or six that are really really strong ecosystems where there's thriving creator community but also it's thriving on like a business standpoint there's loads of builders there.

[00:27:53]Um so yeah we're we're going to be expanding that one in that way. Um and as for big brands on YouTube side um I can't really say too much um but we are speaking to some of the biggest web three brands in the world. Um and you know we're we're we're hoping to get some of these deals over the line and and and online in the next couple of months at least.

[00:28:15]>> Looks like there's $2 million per year might be a lot higher soon.

[00:28:18]>> He did say conservative estimate.

[00:28:20]>> [laughter] >> Yeah it's really exciting. Look Tom uh we appreciate you coming on the show today and explaining to us what Sub that 93 Bitcast is up to. Um I think I hope our viewers and our listeners really got a lot out of that. You know and we hope to have you on the show again. Um you know maybe in the next few months to see what kind of ecosystems you've expanded into.

[00:28:38]>> 100%.

[00:28:38]>> Yeah absolutely love to. And thanks for having me on guys really enjoyed it.

[00:28:41]>> Absolutely. Hey make sure you guys tune in to the next episode.

[00:28:44]>> That one is going to be a banger.

[00:28:52]>> All views expressed by speakers on the Bean Pod are solely their opinions. You should not treat any opinion expressed on the Bean Pod as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a specific strategy, but only as an expression of their opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.