MEXC adds TAO staking with Yuma integration

MEXC has launched staking for Bittensor’s native TAO token by integrating validator Yuma’s infrastructure, opening the service to the exchange’s reported 40 million users in more than 170 countries and regions. The rollout allows customers to delegate TAO through the exchange without moving holdings to a separate Bittensor-compatible wallet, lowering the barriers to participating in the network’s staking system. Yuma will operate the validator infrastructure behind the product while MEXC provides the customer-facing service. In Bittensor’s model, validators assess miners across subnets and assign weights that influence how token emissions are distributed. The network currently has 128 subnets focused on services such as machine-learning inference, model training, computing power, storage, prediction systems, coding assistants and financial modeling. The announcement did not disclose an expected annual yield, lock-up period or minimum staking amount, and it did not say whether users would gain exposure to individual subnet Alpha tokens. TAO was trading near $199 at the time of writing, for a market capitalization of about $1.91 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data supplied with the announcement. The MEXC launch comes shortly after Yuma criticized Root Reborn, a proposed Bittensor governance overhaul that it said could shift validators from neutral network operators into active capital managers. The unresolved debate remains part of TAO’s market backdrop after the token fell nearly 20% from about $283 on June 15 to roughly $225 on June 19, as governance concerns, derivatives liquidations and weaker risk appetite weighed on sentiment.