General TAO Ventures Launches Project Rubicon to Bridge Bittensor Subnets to Global Web3 Markets

The new liquid staking protocol connects Bittensor's subnet tokens to Base through a strategic partnership with Chainlink, and is now available on Aerodrome

TORONTO, Nov. 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- General TAO Ventures (GTV), a leading innovator in the Bittensor ecosystem, today unveiled Project Rubicon, a protocol designed to bridge Bittensor's subnet alpha tokens to the Base L2 blockchain. Project Rubicon is launching with Chainlink, Base, and Aerodrome, each playing a key role in bringing Bittensor's subnet Alpha tokens into the broader Web3 economy. Chainlink serves as a strategic partner and launch collaborator, with GTV integrating Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) as the secure, canonical infrastructure for cross-chain transfers. Aerodrome, the leading DEX on Base, has launched the first xAlpha/USDC liquidity pools to enable trading and jumpstart market activity.

Bittensor represents a frontier in decentralized AI and blockchain infrastructure, boasting exceptional engineering talent and compelling narratives across its subnets, yet it faces significant barriers to adoption due to its novel architecture, specialized wallets, and limited distribution channels. Project Rubicon addresses this challenge head-on by enabling non-custodial liquid staking of subnet Alpha tokens, transforming them into ERC-20 compatible liquid staked assets (xAlpha) that can be traded, staked, and utilized in DeFi protocols on Base. This design allows subnet owners and holders to access global liquidity, while preserving the decentralized integrity of Bittensor's architecture.

Project Rubicon launches with an initial cohort of 17 leading Bittensor subnets—Affine (Subnet 120), PTN (Subnet 8), Targon (Subnet 4), Macrocosmos' iota (Subnet 9), Ridges (Subnet 62), Cartha (Subnet 35), Bitmind (Subnet 34), Score (Subnet 44), 404-Gen (Subnet 17), Chutes (Subnet 64), Gradients (Subnet 56), Lium (Subnet 51), Synth (Subnet 50), Sportstensor (Subnet 41), Resi (Subnet 46), TAO Private Network (Subnet 65) and Leadpoet (Subnet 71). Each subnet begins with approximately $300,000 in initial liquidity across Alpha token and USDC pairings.

This collaborative effort unlocks enhanced rewards generation for subnet owners and other Liquid Stakers through LP fees, and provides subnet owners with liquidity without having to sell their underlying subnet owner assets. The LSA bridge leverages Bittensor-native tooling through the SubTensorEVM, ensuring a secure, audited solution certified by Hashlock.

"Project Rubicon represents the crossover point where Bittensor can capitalize on its unparalleled intelligence network," said Victor Teixeira, CIO of General TAO Ventures. "By deploying with Chainlink and deploying on Base and Aerodrome, with the top Bittensor subnets, we're not just building a bridge—we're unleashing an army of subnet teams to conquer new frontiers in Web3 liquidity."

"We're excited to see Chainlink CCIP serve as the canonical cross-chain infrastructure powering Project Rubicon's connection between Bittensor's subnet alpha tokens and Base. By adopting the Chainlink standard for interoperability, Project Rubicon is helping bring Bittensor's decentralized AI subnets into the broader onchain economy. This integration showcases how CCIP enables new cross-chain markets to emerge with the reliability, security, and scalability that major ecosystems require," said Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs.

"Really glad General TAO Ventures is doing this, it's a big deal for subnet tokens to reach other markets. From what I can see they are doing it right. The die is cast."—said Jacob Steeves, founder of Bittensor.

The official website for Project Rubicon, the Liquid Staking Alpha Bridge can be found here.

About General TAO Ventures
Founded in January 2024, General TAO Ventures (GTV) is a vertically integrated TAO generation vehicle, spanning subnet incubation, validation, and mining. Committed to driving innovation and accelerating the Intelligence Revolution, GTV is founded and managed by the team behind the Contango Digital Blockchain x AI fund. By leveraging the fund GTV has a proprietary deal funnel to streamline world class DeAI teams into the industry's leading network, Bittensor.

About Chainlink
Chainlink is the industry-standard oracle platform bringing the capital markets onchain and powering the majority of decentralized finance (DeFi). The Chainlink stack provides the essential data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy standards needed to power advanced blockchain use cases for institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, stablecoins, and more. Since inventing decentralized oracle networks, Chainlink has enabled tens of trillions in transaction value and now secures the vast majority of DeFi.

Many of the world's largest financial services institutions have also adopted Chainlink's standards and infrastructure, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, ANZ, and top protocols such as Aave, GMX, Lido, and many others. Chainlink leverages a novel fee model where offchain and onchain revenue from enterprise adoption is converted to LINK tokens and stored in a strategic Chainlink Reserve. Learn more at chain.link.

About Base
Base is an Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) blockchain, developed by Coinbase and built on the Optimism Superchain, that aims to provide a secure, cost-effective, and developer-friendly platform for decentralized applications (DApps). Using optimistic rollups, it processes transactions off-chain and bundles them onto the Ethereum mainnet, resulting in lower fees and faster transaction speeds while inheriting Ethereum's security.

About Aerodrome
Aerodrome is a decentralized exchange where you can execute low-fee swaps, deposit tokens to earn rewards, and actively participate in the onchain economy.

SOURCE Chainlink