Glossary

What each metric means, its exact formula, the API request behind it, and why it can differ from other explorers.

For AI agents: llms.txt

Burn

The share of the miner reward pool that never reaches independent miners, because it was directed at the owner's own neurons and then destroyed.

Formulathe share of the miner reward pool aimed at owner neurons: Σ (owner neurons' incentive) × 100, the incentive vector already being normalised by the chain, weighted by the emission split between mechanisms on multi-mechanism subnets

The owner does not pocket this emission. The chain withholds any incentive aimed at an owner or "immune" hotkey and then either burns or recycles it, depending on the subnet's setting, and the value is deliberately identical either way. That withheld share matters because the chain scales the subnet's TAO emission allocation by (1 − burn), so a high burn actively costs the subnet, though its alpha emission is untouched. An "owner neuron" is any neuron whose coldkey is the subnet owner, plus the subnet owner hotkey. Below 100% means at least one independent miner is earning. The figure is recomputed from the live metagraph rather than read from the chain's own per-tempo ratio; the two agree closely, and they can drift on subnets the chain has stopped emitting to, where its own ratio falls back to zero while ours still reflects the last distribution.

API request
GET https://api.taoswap.org/v2/subnets/

Response fieldresults[].emission_miner_burn

Chain Buys (Excess TAO emission)

TAO the protocol spends buying alpha on the open pool, rather than injecting it as fresh liquidity. It is real buy pressure paid by the network.

Formulathe TAO the protocol actually spent buying alpha in the pool on the last block (the swap's executed amount, not the allocated one), in τ/block, shown ×7200 for τ/day. Equivalently: the subnet's allocated TAO emission minus the TAO it managed to inject as liquidity

Each block the chain wants to inject the subnet's TAO emission as matching TAO + alpha liquidity, but the alpha side is capped at the root proportion × the block's alpha emission, priced at spot. As a subnet ages its alpha issuance grows, that cap falls, and the TAO that can no longer be paired is spent buying alpha in the pool instead. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why older subnets drift from liquidity injection towards chain buys. Post-halving values are exactly what the chain wrote, with no rescaling applied. Replaces the old chain-buys estimate (a τ/day price proxy), so historical values diverge sharply. null for root, and 0 means no chain buy on that block (the chain stores it unsigned, so it is never negative). The field records what actually executed, so on a rare partial-injection block the two legs sum below the allocated emission. One stale-value trap: the chain only clears this counter for subnets it is currently emitting to, so a subnet that leaves that set keeps its last value instead of dropping to 0.

API request
GET https://api.taoswap.org/v2/subnets/

Response fieldresults[].excess_tao_emission

Chain Buys %

This subnet's share of all the chain buying happening across the network.

Formulathis subnet's chain buys / the total chain buys across every non-root subnet × 100

A normalised share, so it sums to 100 across non-root subnets. There is no smoothing whatsoever: the chain clears the underlying counter every block, so the value is whatever one block happened to do, which makes it very spiky. It is also a sample rather than a live reading, since the sync only lands on roughly one block in ten. Use the history series for a stable view.

API request
GET https://api.taoswap.org/v2/subnets/

Response fieldresults[].excess_tao_emission_percent

EMA %

The subnet's share of realized per-block emission. It is the same number as Emission %: the name is legacy, and no EMA is involved any more.

Formulaidentical to Emission %

Two names for one metric: the same number, to within rounding. The "EMA" is pure back-compat: there is no 30-day half-life and no net stake/unstake flow involved since emission switched from flow-based to price-based in June 2026. What it tracks now is the chain emission share, which the chain builds from the moving price × (1 − miner burn), renormalised over the emission-enabled non-root subnets. That weighting used to carry a root-proportion factor too; it was removed in the runtime released as v430. Root (SN0) is null. The old flow EMA now only survives in the Inflow / Outflow fields. One genuine difference to know: this figure is recomputed on every request over the subnets we have on record, Emission % is frozen at the last chain sync over the subnets alive at that moment, so a destroyed subnet can still weigh on this one.

API request
GET https://api.taoswap.org/v2/subnets/

Response fieldresults[].emission_ema_percent

EMA Inflow / Outflow

The two halves of one signed average of net TAO flow (stake minus unstake) into the pool. A subnet shows one or the other, never both.

Formulathe last known value of the chain EMA of net TAO flow (stake minus unstake), frozen: inflow = max(EMA, 0), outflow = |min(EMA, 0)|, in τ

IMPORTANT: these values are FROZEN and no longer mean anything current. Since emission switched to price-based weighting in June 2026 the chain code that advanced this EMA is never called, so the storage is still readable but never updated; what you see is whatever it held the day it stopped. It used to be a ~30-day half-life EMA counting only direct user stake and unstake, with emission-driven swaps excluded. Any explorer showing a live 24h/7d net flow is computing something else. Do not try to rebuild it from the chain's raw flow counter either: that one is still fed on every stake and is never reset, so it only grows.

API request
GET https://api.taoswap.org/v2/subnets/

Response fieldresults[].inflow / results[].outflow

Emission %

The share of the network's per-block TAO emission that goes to this subnet. Across emission-enabled subnets it adds up to ~100%.

Formula(TAO injected as liquidity + TAO spent on chain buys) / the same sum over every non-root subnet × 100, per block

It is a share, not an absolute amount, so the halving cancels out of it entirely. EMA % is the same number under an older name. A subnet reads 0 when emission is switched off for it (its share is redistributed on-chain), and a freshly registered subnet starts switched off until it is enabled. A subnet is also skipped entirely while registration is closed on it or its subtoken is disabled. Switching emission off only stops the TAO side: the subnet keeps emitting alpha to its miners and validators, so a subnet at 0% here is not a dead subnet. Root (SN0) is null. Since the chain records what was actually injected, rare partial-injection blocks read slightly low.

API request
GET https://api.taoswap.org/v2/subnets/

Response fieldresults[].emission_percent

Root Proportion

The share of this subnet's validator emission that flows to root (SN0) stakers instead of to its own alpha stakers.

Formulaγ·R / (γ·R + the subnet's alpha issuance), a fraction in [0, 1], ×100 for display. R = TAO staked on root, γ = the chain tao weight (~0.18, read from the chain at each sync), alpha issuance = α in the pool + α held outside it + the protocol alpha reserve

The denominator is the subnet's whole alpha issuance, the pool side included; netting it against the staked side alone overstates the proportion by several points. The third term is protocol liquidity the AMM could not inject without pushing the pool weights out of range: it is zero on every subnet today and drains as soon as an injection fits, so in practice the value is set by the two alpha stocks. The proportion falls as a subnet ages and its own alpha issuance grows, which is also what shifts the subnet from liquidity injection to chain buys (see Chain Buys). Whether that root share actually reaches root stakers is conditional: when the network-wide moving prices sum below 1 the chain recycles it instead of paying it out. It is a fraction, not a percentage. null for root only; with no data it reads 0, not null. On a brand-new or emptied subnet, where alpha issuance is 0, the served value is a floor rather than the chain's own answer. Do not confuse γ with the owner cut shown under Conviction, which also sits near 0.18 and is unrelated.

API request
GET https://api.taoswap.org/v2/subnets/

Response fieldresults[].root_proportion