Vidaio SN85

Market cap$5.17M3,071,932 α at $1.68, block 9,260,910, 11 Oct (chain)

Staking yield34.8%a year in alpha, from emission; 25 hotkeys, 11 Oct (chain)

Alpha issued per year$4.43M7,200 α/day at spot, 86% of market cap (chain)

Customer revenueClaimedno figure; owner net seller −134 τ/30d (taorevenue)

In short

Billed in credits, no public price. The team's one benchmark implies about $0.067 a minute, two to three times cloud list prices.
"80% smaller" is not what its own test shows. 7.8–9.7% fewer bits than FFmpeg at equal quality; the edge is one encode to a target instead of three to five.
Revenue is claimed, not evidenced. A PIP Studios joint venture and one unnamed dubbing test; no customer, usage or dollar figure; the owner sold a net 134 τ in 30 days.
One winner takes the miner emission. Since 27 Sep a two-week result takes it all, 89.55% to first; 73 serving miners earn nothing.
Verdict: staking yields 34.8% a year in alpha, all from emission; the promised buyback is unbuilt; no paying customer is shown.

At equal quality Vidaio saves 8–10% against FFmpeg; its edge is one encode to a target

Bits saved at equal picture quality (VMAF): Vidaio's one benchmark beside other encodersEach row links its test.
Encoder	Compared with	Bits saved	Source and caveat
Vidaio (AV1)	Self-hosted FFmpeg	7.8%	Vidaio-commissioned, 17 Jun 2026, 30 clips; one encode hit the target in 68% of jobs
Vidaio (H.265)	Self-hosted FFmpeg	9.7%	Same test
Deep Render neural codec	SVT-AV1	45–46%	Jan Ozer, May 2025, low-latency only
AV1 (any encoder)	x265 (H.265)	about 35%	Streaming Media

Every dollar paid on SN85 is new issuance

Who is paid on SN85; none of it is customer moneyChain, block 9,260,910, 11 Oct 2026; 7,200 α a day at $1.68, split 18/41/41 (epoch 25659 log).
Who	What they do	Paid in	Per day
Miners, five paid slots	Win a sealed two-week code competition, 89.55% to first; the 73 serving miners earn nothing	New alpha	$5.0k
Validators and stakers	Copy the weights Vidaio's server publishes; dividends flow through the owner's hotkey to 25 delegators	New alpha	$5.0k
Vidaio, the owner (5GTPB…)	Runs the scoring server, competitions, site and API; holds 2.2% of alpha; net seller of 134 τ in 30 days	18% owner cut	$2.2k
Licensing treasury (UID 111)	Registered 6 Oct to pay winners whose code serves the site	0.5% of miner emission	$25
Alpha holders	No buyback, burn-from-revenue or fee sink; 30-day outflow $337,120	—	—

Emission received down 94% in 12 months, to 3.9 τ a day

Revenue proxy: TAO the network pays into the pool each day, since registration (chain). No customer revenue series exists: site, API, repositories, epoch logs, taorevenue and TAO Daily checked.

The contest pays five places every two weeks, 90% to the winner

How Vidaio's miner contest worksvidaio.io/competitions and MINING.md, 11 Oct 2026; payouts checked on chain at block 9,260,910.
Question	Answer
Cadence	Every two weeks, paying for two weeks; live: frame interpolation, closes 16 Oct
Entry cost	0.0005 τ registration, 500 α (about $840) staked, own GPU time; sealed run against 16 hidden clips
Split, on chain	Crown (score over 0.85): 90/4/3/2/1; podium: 50/24/13/8/5. UID 202 holds 89.55% today
Paid against entries	Five of 28 ranked last result; three entered the live one; 73 serving miners paid nothing
Winning code published?	Crown source is released before payout; podium code and the premium encoder stay private

Supply side

Miners paid on chain fell from 100 to 6 since 14 Apr

UIDs paid each day, from chain (block 9,248,983); the owner's key is excluded because the chain burns its share. Payout rules, not miners leaving, drive the fall.

The owner holds 2.2% of alpha and sold a net 134 TAO in 30 days

The owner coldkey holds 66,813 α (2.2% of outstanding) and sold a net 134 τ ($38,864) in the 30 days to 11 Oct (taorevenue); an outside account has locked 3.7% of all alpha to its hotkey. Its 18% cut is $0.80M a year at spot.

SN85 has cost the network $12.01M of alpha since April 2025 at the prices of the time: $700.2k a week at the May 2025 peak, $73.0k now

7,200 α a day at that day's pool price and Kraken close, by week, to block 9,260,910 (chain); 3.85M α issued, 3.07M outstanding, 20% burned.

What would change our mind

A named paying customer or an API usage figure moves revenue from Claimed to Yes.
An independent benchmark reproducing the one-encode result moves the product case.
A buyback above a quarter of revenue from an identified wallet gives the token a share of the business.
Continued owner selling, or a competition cycle with no qualifying entry, weakens the case.