Join step by step

Before you start

1. Install a Bittensor wallet in your browser and create an account in it. Write down its recovery phrase: it is your Bittensor wallet.
2. Get a little TAO into your wallet: buy it with USDC on Kokoah with Swap TAO, which sends it straight to your wallet’s Bittensor address (it starts with 5), or buy it on a crypto exchange such as Binance, Kraken or KuCoin and withdraw it there, choosing the Bittensor network.

The joining fee is set by the Bittensor network and changes with demand. Kokoah shows today’s fee before you pay, allows up to a fifth more in case it rises while you register, and keeps a tiny amount aside for the network’s own fee.

To earn on a day, your trading account must average at least $10,000 over that day. You can register before that; you earn from the first day you meet it.

Three ways to join

Open the Register page and sign in to Kokoah. First, choose how you join:

Create a miner key for me

The easiest way. Kokoah makes your miner key in this browser and shows you its 12 words to keep.

Use an account from my wallet

Your miner key is another account in your Bittensor wallet, separate from the one that pays. Any account can be a miner key; add one in your wallet first. If it is already registered on the subnet, Kokoah treats it as an existing miner.

I already have a registered miner

Link the miner you have, with no fee and no new registration. Its hotkey must be an account in your browser wallet: a hotkey made with btcli can be imported there with its 12-word phrase. Kokoah checks on the chain that it is registered on the subnet.

The Register steps

Kokoah walks you through these steps one at a time and remembers where you are in this browser. Each opens only when the one before it is done:

1. Connect your Bittensor wallet. Your wallet asks whether Kokoah may see your accounts.
2. Choose the account that pays (new miners). It pays the joining fee and owns your miner and its rewards.
3. Your miner key. Save the 12 words of the key Kokoah made, or pick the wallet account that is your miner key.
4. Check the fee (new miners). Kokoah shows today’s fee and your balance. If there isn’t enough, copy your address, add TAO and check again.
5. Sign with your trading wallet. One signature that names your miner and your trading address. It can’t trade or move your money.
6. Register and publish the link. For a new miner, your Bittensor wallet signs the registration and pays the fee. Then your miner key publishes the link to your trading wallet, which is free. An existing miner only publishes the link.
7. Verify. Kokoah reads the link back from the chain and shows your miner’s UID once it matches what your trading wallet signed.

Your miner key

Your miner key (hotkey) names your miner on the subnet and signs its link. A key Kokoah made is never sent anywhere, and this browser keeps it only until your miner is linked or you sign out; then its 12 words are your only copy. Your rewards belong to the Bittensor wallet that paid, but you need the miner key to move your miner to another trading wallet later.

After you join

• Your miner appears on the leaderboard.
• For about the first 14 hours, your spot is protected: nobody can take it.
• You start earning once your first three trades worth $1,000 together have qualified you, on every day your account averages at least $10,000. The validators score each UTC day after it ends.
• To trade from another wallet, move your miner in Settings → Subnet miner: both wallets sign and the miner’s hotkey approves, once every 60 days, with no fee. Credit and qualification restart.
• One trading wallet links to one miner. A wallet stays with its miner until the miner moves to another wallet or leaves the subnet; until then, another miner’s link to it is refused.

Spots on the subnet

The subnet has 256 spots. When they are all taken, each new registration replaces the miner earning the least among those past their protected first hours. Trading through Kokoah regularly keeps your spot.