Bittensor Update: Root Claim

Bittensor core devs announced an upcoming mainnet upgrade introducing Root Claim, a change that gives users control over how root dividends are realized. The team plans to roll it out to devnet/testnet later this week and mainnet early next week.

What’s changing

• New default — Swap (important): If you do nothing, your accumulated root alpha will be swapped to TAO at claim time and added to your root stake.
• Opt-in to Keep alpha: Prefer alpha exposure? Call set_root_claim_type(Keep) to have future claims remain in alpha.
• Auto-claim: Each block, a few accounts are randomly selected for automatic claiming (on average ~once every two days per account, but randomness means it can vary).
  • 5 auto-claims per block by default.
  • Per-subnet minimum claim (RootClaimableThreshold): 0.0005 alpha by default; subnet owners may change this.
  • Your Keep/Swap choice is honored during auto-claim (helps mitigate MEV while keeping regular claims).
• Manual claim: You can call claim_root() anytime to claim without waiting for auto-claim.

Why it’s better

• User choice: Pick between alpha growth (Keep) or TAO stability (Swap) on root.
• Smoother markets & accounting: Claims are staggered across blocks, reducing bursty sell pressure.
• Potential alpha support: If more participants Keep rather than Swap, root sell pressure falls, which can support alpha price.

Breaking changes for builders & tooling

Removed storage:
TaoDividendsPerSubnet, PendingAlphaSwapped, PendingRootDivs

New sources of truth:
PendingRootAlphaDivs, RootClaimable, RootClaimed, RootClaimType,
StakingColdkeysByIndex, StakingColdkeys, NumStakingColdkeys,
NumRootClaim, RootClaimableThreshold, AlphaMapLastKey

RPC impact: Fields that previously exposed pending root TAO now return 0 (root is no longer pre-swapped). To display “pending root,” compute:
(RootClaimable × root stake) − RootClaimed (per hotkey/subnet).

What to do now

• Users: Decide your preference and, if you want to hold alpha, set RootClaimType to Keep before the mainnet rollout.
• Operators/Tooling: Update storage reads and UIs to the new fields; revise “pending” calculations as above; expose the per-subnet RootClaimableThreshold.

This upgrade puts the realization of rewards back in your hands while dialing down market friction—cleaner claims, clearer choices.