Bittensor wallet info (TAO)

[tccadmin]

One reader was asking about Bittensor (TAO) wallets (I didn’t know because I just hold wTAO at the moment), Jon got back to me with some info which I’ve passed on and am posting here:

The Opentensor Wallet John referred to I presume is this one – Bittensor; there is a video from a trusted account on YouTube showing how he sets up and uses it (https://youtu.be/PfU8vgasDsQ?si=8eF0uaF76AM7J3Th). I haven’t used it myself, but I can see from the reviews that it is 3.7 stars out of 5 on the Googlechromewebstore, so the user experience certainly hasn’t been perfect.

The two wallets I have used are firstly, the one that was recommended by the guy I learned about TAO from a year ago, which is the Polkadot.js extension wallet on Chrome. He has a video showing how to install/use/stake, is here: https://youtu.be/xsx3rXu3r1s?si=nyPBWudtw4jC3n8M. (Because this video was over a year ago it also includes how to buy off the Bittensor Exchange – which was the only way before TAO got on CEXes.)
He also has another video of how to stake: https://youtu.be/pulEdWzDv4o?si=HcYzDmuAIZOSoQw_

The second wallet was recommended by another trusted account and TAO whale. I only learned of this one in the last three months. It is the NOVA wallet (a Polkadot wallet). He has a video of how to install and use (including staking), here: https://youtu.be/sBDfeGjlNVw?si=ZhrjLzIJDNTsp3EV

Polkagate I have not used or heard of before; I searched “Polkagate TAO” on X and it is pretty much a “twitterwhack”, no results.

Looking further…as per the Bittensor team, Polkagate must not be compatible with TAO, as it is not one of the four compatible wallets they mention, which are in this order: (https://x.com/evert_scott/status/1734340326267969606?s=20)

– Polkadot{js} (Chrome Ext.)
– Nova Wallet (Mobile) – Subwallet (Mobile, Desktop) – Bittensor Web Wallet (Official)

Subwallet I have never used, so can’t comment, sorry. John mentioned he can receive and send TAO from his subwallet – did he want to stake also? I can only suggest to follow the above videos for Polkadot.js and Nova wallet staking…especially the Nova one which is so smooth…and see how he goes from there.

The Bittensor community seems to prefer the first two mentioned above – Polkadot.js and Nova – which might be because they work seamlessly (have never had an issue sending, receiving staking/unstaking with either).

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