Recycle Or Burn
Recycle or burn is a per-subnet hyperparameter, listed in the documentation as RecycleOrBurn, that
sets how miner emission routed to burn UIDs on a subnet is treated in supply accounting. The
reference describes the enum as choosing whether that emission is burned or recycled, with a default
of burn (Subnet Hyperparameters).
What It Controls
The hyperparameter governs supply treatment for emission allocated to burn UIDs, not which miners earn incentives or how validator weights are aggregated. When set to burn, miner emission sent to burn UIDs is treated as permanently removed missing supply that will not be re-emitted. When set to recycle, the same routed emission is recycled: deducted from the chain’s issuance record so that quantity can be emitted again later rather than counted as gone forever (Subnet Hyperparameters, Glossary: Recycling and burning, Glossary: Issuance).
That distinction matters because recycling is not the same as instantly returning TAO to spendable circulation. Recycling adjusts issuance accounting so a deducted amount may enter future protocol emission; burning leaves no return path for that burn-UID allocation (Glossary: Recycling and burning, Emission).
The setting is owner-tunable per subnet, so netuid 1 can keep the default burn mode while another netuid recycles burn-UID emission through issuance, and the live value is chain state rather than a network constant (Subnet Hyperparameters, Bittensor Networks).
Documented Type, Default, and Setter
The Subnet Hyperparameters
reference lists RecycleOrBurn as a RecycleOrBurnEnum with a default of Burn. It is changed
through the sudo_set_recycle_or_burn extrinsic, and the reference marks the permission required to
set it as subnet owner
(Subnet Hyperparameters).
RecycleOrBurn is also one of the rows returned by the canonical get_subnet_hyperparams_v3
runtime API, so the live enum value for a subnet can be read from the current hyperparameter table
rather than inferred from the default
(Subnet Hyperparameters).
Because each subnet carries its own hyperparameters, the burn-UID handling mode on one netuid can differ from the documented default and from the mode active on another subnet (Subnet Hyperparameters).
The Two Documented Variants
The reference describes RecycleOrBurnEnum as setting the behaviour of the burn UIDs for a subnet,
with exactly two documented variants
(Subnet Hyperparameters):
Burn— miner emission sent to the burn UID or UIDs is burned, treated as permanently removed supply with no re-emission path (Glossary: Burning).Recycle— the same emission is recycled, deducted from the chain’s issuance record so the quantity can re-enter future protocol emission rather than being counted as gone (Glossary: Issuance).
The choice applies only to emission routed to a subnet’s burn UIDs. It does not change which miners earn incentive, how validator weights are aggregated, or the registration burn paid at subnet entry (Subnet Hyperparameters, Emission).
Reading the Live Value for netuid 1
Recycle or burn is per-subnet chain state, so any live claim is tied to a specific netuid. For the
documented example netuid 1 on Finney mainnet, readers can verify the live RecycleOrBurn value
with btcli subnet hyperparameters --netuid 1 --network finney, which prints the subnet’s
hyperparameter table including this enum row
(Subnet Hyperparameters: View hyperparameters).
The infobox uses netuid 1 only as an example label; other subnets expose their own values
(Bittensor Networks).
Distinction from Burning
Burning permanently removes tokens from spendable circulation with no return path. Recycle or burn is the per-subnet enum that chooses whether burn-UID miner emission follows the burn path or the recycle path through issuance accounting (Glossary: Burning, Glossary: Recycling and burning, Subnet Hyperparameters).
- Burning — permanent removal with no re-emission path.
- Recycle or burn — per-subnet enum for burn-UID emission supply treatment.