Learn·Risk
How an outsider can take ownership of a subnet
One hotkey's matured conviction must clear 18% of a subnet's eligible α on its own, on a subnet at least a year old — a bar that moves as you watch it.
Published 2026-09-17
The rule, in the chain's own terms
A subnet's owner is a coldkey recorded on chain, SubnetOwner. The runtime lets a non-owner claim it when a single hotkey's matured conviction exceeds 18% of the subnet's eligible α — α staked out less protocol-held α less α burned. Convictions do not add up across hotkeys, and the owner's own lock does not count.
Two further gates: the subnet must be at least one year old, and only matured conviction counts — locked α that has not yet matured contributes nothing, however large. A gauge at 100% on a young subnet is not eligibility.
Why the bar moves
The denominator is live. α is minted into the subnet every block, so eligible α grows and the same conviction is a smaller share of it tomorrow — a gauge can slip back while nobody unlocks. Burned α is subtracted and pushes the other way.
The numerator moves too: a perpetual lock keeps maturing between reads, and an unlocking lock decays. Progress is a position on a moving line, not a countdown, so Taosis projects every lock forward to the current block.
What changes hands
A completed takeover changes one thing on chain: the coldkey in SubnetOwner. Nobody's α moves; what passes to the new owner is control of the subnet.
From chain state alone Taosis cannot tell a lock takeover from a sale or a coldkey swap — all three end in the same owner change — and its guard says so rather than guessing.
Where Taosis shows it
The Takeover watch page ranks every subnet by progress: the largest non-owner hotkey lock, its matured conviction, the α needed and the α still missing, priced in τ. A subnet whose α staked out could not be read is left off rather than ranked at 0%, which would read as safe. The screener's Takeover % column and each subnet page show the same figure.
The chain-state guards on the Alerts page fire when a subnet's largest lock crosses half the threshold and the threshold itself, upward and once per crossing, and when the owner changes. A high percentage is where the line is now, not a prediction.