When I started @SubnetSummerTAO, I had no plan to run a validator. I came into Bittensor as a community member and nothing else. Subnet Summer was built to give that community a place to talk in public about subnets, the protocol, and where this network is heading. That's what the Town Square was always meant to be. But over time, something kept bothering me. Some of the most valuable opinions on subnets and the protocol came out of our AMAs, Spaces and Telegram, and most of them fell on deaf ears. A town square where the conversation never reaches the decisions is only half built. At the same time, validators were quietly becoming the most consequential seats on the network. Conviction, the emission gate, Root Reborn. More power and more discretion, with almost no way for the people staking behind them to have a say. That's when it clicked. Validators were massively underutilised. I hadn't seen anyone build incentives into a validator that give the people behind it a real voice in how it votes and where it allocates. I didn't need to wait for someone else to do it. So today we're launching the Subnet Summer Validator, built with Medulla Labs. I want to be upfront about something. I don't have relationships with VCs or large investors. This only works if it's driven by you: the individual in this ecosystem who believes Bittensor should keep decentralising and never become like its centralised counterparts. The name stays Subnet Summer because the mission hasn't changed. Community, education, events, and now a validator. All of it exists to support Bittensor and its subnets. The Town Square gave the community a voice. Now that voice carries weight.

Who is still here on the weekends?