Wormhole Bridges TAO Token to Solana via Sunrise Platform

The Solana Foundation and others announced on Tuesday that TAO, the native token for decentralized AI project Bittensor, is now available for trading on Solana, according to Edward Zuo of Wormhole Labs. The announcement was made at Solana’s Accelerate USA conference, marking the launch of a canonical bridged version of TAO.

Availability and Integration

As of Tuesday, the canonical bridged version of TAO can “trade natively” on Solana, including its major DeFi platforms Jupiter and Meteora as well as the Phantom and Solflare wallets. The activation is powered by Wormhole Labs’ Sunrise platform, which acts as a “day-one asset gateway” for bridging established tokens from other chains to Solana with real liquidity, making them instantly tradable against native assets like SOL, USDC, and JUP.

Technical Mechanism and Canonical Status

Wormhole argues that assets bridged using its Native Token Transfers system are not wrapped in the traditional sense. Instead of tokens being locked or burned on the source chain and minted on Solana, the tokens retain key metadata and other distinguishing features. Because anyone can launch an SPL token and call it TAO or employ other wrapping methods, the announcement at Accelerate confers legitimacy as Sunrise’s TAO claims “canonical status.”

Sunrise Platform Expansion

Solana has introduced a host of native tokens through various methods. Sunrise has also launched Solana-native versions of MEGA, HYPE, AVAX, and MON, following earlier launches including XRP via Hex Trust.

Strategic Vision

“Solana’s Internet Capital Markets thesis holds that all meaningful assets should be globally accessible the moment they come onchain. AI is no exception. TAO on Solana makes the category native to Solana DeFi rather than adjacent to it,” the announcement reads.

About Bittensor

Bittensor is a protocol designed to power decentralized AI projects through a network of miners, validators, and subnet networks. A fixed supply of TAO tokens is emitted and distributed based on network participation to incentivize development.

Backing and Financial Developments

Digital Currency Group has emerged as a major backer of Bittensor, particularly through its Yuma subsidiary. Its asset management unit, Grayscale, also filed to convert its TAO trust into an ETF.

Criticism

Some subnets and onlookers have criticized Bittensor for “decentralized theater.”