Yuma, a development studio and accelerator for the decentralized AI (deAI) network Bittensor, founded by Barry Silbert of Digital Currency Group, has introduced Yuman Asset Management to give institutional and accredited investors easy access to the deAI ecosystem.
Bittensor is a decentralized network for AI that rewards people for contributing data and computing power to a range of activities in the form of separate use case-driven entities called “subnets.” This can include things like text translation, fraud detection, image recognition, and more esoteric goals like predicting the structure of complex protein chains.
Powered by its proprietary token, TAO, Bittensor aims to be the ‘World Wide Web’ of AI, allowing permissionless AI innovation where anyone can build, control or access models via subnets – an alternative to the centralized infrastructure or company-owned AI resources.
Yuma Asset Management, which comes with a $10 million anchor investment from DCG, features two fund strategies that invest in subnet tokens, the protocol-native crypto assets of these decentralized contributor networks, denominated and traded with TAO, according to a press release.
The Yuma Subnet Composite Fund, which is designed for market cap-weighted exposure to all active subnets, is similar to the “NASDAQ Composite” for subnet tokens, according to DCG. The Yuma Large Cap Subnet Fund is similar to the “Dow Jones Industrial Average” for subnet tokens, designed for targeted exposure to the top subnets by market capitalization.
In the early days of Bitcoin, Silbert did something similar when he launched the Bitcoin Investment Trust in 2013, now Grayscale’s GBTC product. DCG believes that it remains difficult for investors to access Bittensor, or for investors to access AI in general, as the largest AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic are private. As such, Yuma Asset Management provides an early and unique bridge to AI for institutions and accredited investors, DCG said.
“Subnet tokens are an emerging asset class powered by TAO that offers investors unprecedented exposure to a massive wave of AI innovation,” said Barry Silbert, CEO of Yuma. “The decentralized AI sector has the power to be as transformative as Bitcoin, and Yuma Asset Management opens the door for investors to access it through Bittensor.”