# OpenDev Bittensor Weekly Summary — August 5, 2025

For developers, validators, subnet operators, miners, and @everyone to stay in the loop.

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Cortex Team Updates

Async Substrate Interface Updates

• v1.5.0 Released: Major improvements to query handling and resolution with substrate.query_multiple bug fixes

• v1.5.1 Released: Follow-up release addressing query_multiple/decoding fix, reconnection logic improvements, and debug log cleanup

  • Performance enhancements for async subtensor operations

  • Update to resolve query_multiple issues

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Nucleus Team Updates

Alpha Fee Fallback System

• Transaction Fee Protection: Charge fees even when transactions fail to prevent spam attacks

• Dual Currency: TAO preferred, Alpha fallback when TAO insufficient

• Client-Side Calculations: Developers must convert TAO fee quotes to Alpha amounts

• RPC Simulation: Coming soon for fee calculations

• Future enhancement proposed: Multi-token gas fee support (USDC, etc.) for better user experience

Security & Anti-Exploit Measures

• Multiple Burn UIDs: Anti-weight copying mechanism, default 1 UID (configurable to 5), requires governance approval for further increases

• Kappa Hyperparameter: Moving control to governance due to exploitation risks, historically used as "combat tool"

• Stake Weight Freezing: Use previous epoch stake weight in Yuma calculations to prevent manipulation exploits

Chain Optimization

• Neuron Pruning Fix: Replace broken pruning scores with real-time emission-based sorting (5μs vs 50ms performance)

• Storage Cleanup: Remove trust, rank, and pruning score from chain storage to improve scaling capacity

Infrastructure Updates

• Polkadot SDK Upgrade: Major version upgrade in progress, no interface impact

• Uniswap V3 Simulation RPC: Read-only simulation with rate limiting, no fees

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Medulla Team Updates

Infrastructure Improvements:

• External Signer: Evaluating Kraken's implementation for scale deployment

• GitHub Actions: Optimized by prop_physics - significantly faster and more cost-effective

• Rate Limiting: Preparations for new RPC endpoints to prevent abuse

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Church of Rao Hot Projects

Subnet Governance Discussion

• De-registration Mechanisms: Balancing competitive dynamics with institutional compliance requirements, discussion in #i-see-dead-subnets

  • Competitive Philosophy: "You have to compete and if you don't compete you don't get paid" - developing "stick" mechanisms without scaring institutions

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Community

Subnet 46 Recovery

• Community successfully intervened to make the best out of a bad situation

• Subnet now being auctioned on Taostats marketplace with all proceeds going to charity

Tokenomics Mechanism Changes

Subsidy Mechanism Debate: PR #1918 - Sum of Alpha prices maintains floor at 1.0 regardless of TAO halvings, uses EMA prices

• Community Concerns: Motivation unclear, long-term implications unknown, potential for infinite money glitch scenarios

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Action Items

This Week

1. Complete Alpha fee fallback implementation

2. Implement rate limiting for new RPC endpoints

Next Few Weeks

1. Polkadot SDK upgrade completion

2. Multiple burn UIDs implementation

3. Kappa hyperparameter governance changes

4. Storage cleanup (trust, rank, pruning score removal)

Next Month

1. Subnet governance mechanism finalization

2. Tokenomics mechanism clarification from OTF

3. External signer implementation at scale