Eirel is Bittensor subnet 36 (SN36), a project in the Other (Conversational AI Agents) lane. Build the assistant, the chain grades it
Subnet 36 changed hands. The slot that used to run Autoppia's web agents now hosts Eirel, an open competition to build the best AI assistant, where the chain grades each entry on whether it actually got the answer right.
It is an educational deep dive, not a recommendation to stake. For live price, pool depth, and performance, always open the live subnet page.
What is Eirel (SN36)?
Eirel is a Bittensor subnet where independent developers compete to build AI assistants. Each developer packages their assistant as a self-contained program, submits it, and the network runs it against a battery of tasks and scores how well it answers. Rewards follow the scores.
In plain English: It is a bake-off for chatbots. Everyone enters their own assistant, the same questions go to all of them, and the entries that answer best, and use their tools correctly, earn the rewards.
Centralized reference points: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini
How miners and validators work
Like every Bittensor subnet, SN36 is a two-sided market: miners produce work, validators score it, and emissions follow those weights under the network’s dTAO economics.
- Miners submit a Docker-packaged conversational agent that can chat over multiple turns, search the web, fetch URLs, run Python in a sandbox, and pull from documents.
- Validators run each miner's agent on evaluation tasks and score the answers, gating on whether the response is grounded and correct, whether it stayed safe, and whether the agent's tool use matches a server-side log of what it actually called.
Mechanism and design
Eirel runs a competition with a clear division of labor, taken from the project's eirel-ai repository. The subnet owner operates a control plane (the repo calls it owner-api) that handles submissions, builds and runs miner code, orchestrates evaluation, aggregates scores, and publishes weights to the chain. The owner does not judge. Each validator runs its own judging sidecar.
The lifecycle, per the repo:
- A miner submits a Docker-packaged agent along with a small on-chain fee (0.1 TAO in the documented configuration), and the submission's signature is verified through Bittensor.
- The control plane builds the image and places it on subnet-owned runtime, either Docker or Kubernetes.
- At each run boundary, the current set of deployed agents is frozen and evaluation tasks are seeded across a matrix of capabilities and domains, so coverage stays broad.
- Validators claim tasks, invoke each miner's agent through the operator's proxy, and judge locally. The documented scoring is a composite that gates on grounded correctness and instruction safety, and it cross-checks the agent's tool calls against a server-side ledger rather than trusting what the agent reports about itself.
- Scores roll up per run into aggregate snapshots that drive weight publication. After a run closes, the submission archives that were scored become publicly downloadable from the leaderboard, so operators can audit and competitors can study what won.
The launch family is general_chat: a multi-turn conversational assistant offering both a quick mode and a slower reasoning mode, backed by owner-routed tools for web search, URL fetch, a Python sandbox for verifiable computation, and retrieval over per-run document sets. The repository lists additional families as roadmap items gated behind a launch flag, so the current scope is conversational assistants first, with more task types planned.…
Why the project exists
- The problem it solves: Most assistant benchmarks are run by the same people who build the model, and "it sounds right" is easy to game. Eirel separates building from grading. The subnet operator runs the scoring plumbing, and validators judge independently against tasks the miner did not write.
- The opportunity: A continuously run, open contest for assistant quality, where the scoring leans on grounded correctness and verified tool use rather than a static leaderboard that is simple to overfit.
- The Bittensor advantage: The work (building a good assistant) and the judging (scoring it) sit with different parties whose incentives are set on-chain, rather than inside one company that benefits from its own model winning.
- Traction signals: Eirel is early. The SN36 slot was re-registered under this team in April 2026, the code stack has been pushed steadily through late May, and the first competition family is the one now coming online. There is little public social footprint yet.
What stakers should check before buying alpha
Subnet storytelling is cheap. On-chain and product checks are not. Use the same framework as our subnet metrics guide:
| Check | Why |
|---|---|
| Real product / docs / repo | Separates shipping teams from narrative-only slots |
| Pool depth (TAO) | Your exit door: thin pools amplify slippage |
| Net flows (7d / 30d) | Under flow-based emissions, capital votes with its feet |
| Emission share | Whether the market is funding this subnet right now |
| Ownership concentration | Large holders can move a small alpha market |
| Immunity / deregistration | Post-immunity weak slots can lose the race (see immunity guide) |
Pull the live numbers on Eirel · SN36 rather than trusting any static screenshot in a blog post.
Risk factors
- Execution risk: Eirel is new to this slot and unproven at scale. The slot was re-registered in April 2026, the control-plane repository is carried mainly by a single maintainer, and the first competition family is only now coming online. Working code is not the same as a working market of miners and validators.
- Market risk: The alpha price is down roughly 35 percent over 30 days, and net staking flows have been slightly negative over the past week. Under the current flow-based emission model, sustained negative net flows pull a subnet's emission share down, so the inflow trend is worth watching.
- Competition: Conversational assistants are among the most crowded categories anywhere, against well-funded centralized products and other agent-focused Bittensor subnets. Eirel has to show its open, attested scoring produces assistants that are actually better, not just differently governed.
- Concentration: A gini coefficient around 0.70 points to concentrated stake distribution. Large positions can move pool dynamics and weight outcomes more than a flatter distribution would.
How this fits a TAO portfolio
Many holders keep a root vs subnet split: root for calmer TAO exposure, subnets like Eirel for thematic upside (and higher variance). If you use TaoScale, you can size SN36 from your wallet without handing over custody. See non-custodial staking.
- Live market: SN36 on TaoScale
- Browse and stake: /invest
- More subnet explainers: /blog/subnets
FAQ
What does Eirel do on Bittensor?
It is a bake-off for chatbots. Everyone enters their own assistant, the same questions go to all of them, and the entries that answer best, and use their tools correctly, earn the rewards.
What is the SN36 alpha token?
When you stake TAO into subnet 36, you receive that subnet’s alpha. Its price versus TAO moves with the subnet’s pool (see what is dTAO).
How do I research Eirel before staking?
Read the mechanism above, open the official repo/docs when available, then verify pool depth, flows, and activity on SN36. Cross-check with the metrics checklist.
Is this financial advice?
No. TaoScale publishes educational explainers and live tools. Decisions to stake are yours alone.
Not financial advice. Educational overview of Eirel (SN36) compiled from public project materials and ecosystem documentation. Mechanisms and market structure change, so verify live data and official sources before acting.
