> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.tao.media/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Oro Becomes First Crypto Company to Join Y Combinator With Live Token - URL: https://www.tao.media/oro-becomes-first-crypto-company-with-live-to/ - Published: 2026-09-08T21:24:02.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-08T21:24:02.000Z - Description: The Fall 2026 acceptance puts a live-token Bittensor project inside YC as Oro builds open-source shopping agents and evaluation infrastructure. - Author: Bart Hillerich - Tags: Oro, Subnets, News [Oro](https://www.tao.media/tag/oro/), the Bittensor subnet focused on agentic commerce, has announced it will join Y Combinator’s Fall 2026 batch. In an [its post on X](https://x.com/oroagents/status/2097396633764032707?s=20&ref=tao.media), Oro said it was “excited to announce that we're going to be joining Y Combinator in Fall 2026,” adding that the team is “super pumped” to work with [Christopher Golda](https://x.com/golda?ref=tao.media), a general partner at Y Combinator, “to continue on our journey of creating the best-in-class open-source models for agentic commerce.” The acceptance is notable because Oro is not entering YC as a conventional pre-token software startup. The project already operates as a live Bittensor subnet, where miners submit shopping agents, validators evaluate performance, and network incentives reward agents that perform well on structured commerce tasks. Chris Davis, an investor at Unsupervised Capital, [framed the milestone](https://x.com/capradavis/status/2097414672333050058?s=20&ref=tao.media) as a first for the sector. > “I hope people understand how crazy this is,” Davis wrote. “ORO is the first crypto company with a live token to be accepted into Y Combinator.” Davis added that YC “underwrote ORO, evaluated the Bittensor model, and came to understand the subnet as a structural advantage and the token as accretive to the company's capital structure.” ## Oro’s Focus: Open-Source Agents for Commerce Oro is building consumer agentic commerce, or AI agents that can search for products, compare options, follow shopping constraints, and complete long-horizon decision-making tasks in realistic commerce environments. The team operates a decentralized AI agent evaluation network on Bittensor Subnet 15\. Miners submit Python shopping agents, validators score those agents against ShoppingBench-style tasks, and Oro’s system evaluates whether agents can find correct products, respect retailer and budget constraints, and show verifiable reasoning through their tool calls. [Oro is Powering The World’s Largest Agent Competition on BittensorOro is a decentralized AI agent evaluation network on Bittensor Subnet 15\. Miners submit Python shopping agents, independent validators score them against ShoppingBench, and a two-phase race system with a reasoning judge allocates emissions to the best-performing agent daily.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/78/0b/780ba906-b1a7-4bf0-873c-bdd5c32e5331/content/images/icon/Group-1321319358-9521de48-8046-4111-88f6-a880bb43362e.png)Intelligence | AI, Robotics and Bittensor News & InsightsAntonio Verrico![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/78/0b/780ba906-b1a7-4bf0-873c-bdd5c32e5331/content/images/thumbnail/Bart_comic_book_scene_of_robotic_arms_all_reaching_for_a_shin_9e6ca56f-5306-44a0-b276-4c0cf2ec704f_3-85fb84ec-6a6c-4fe4-b817-5e4ab92df791.png)](https://www.tao.media/oro-is-powering-the-worlds-largest-agent-competition-on-bittensor/) The company is attempting to use Bittensor incentives to turn agent evaluation into an open competition, where miners improve models and strategies while validators provide independent scoring. Shardul Bansal, Oro’s CEO, [said YC’s support](https://x.com/shardiban/status/2097400030139134421?s=20&ref=tao.media) will help the team’s mission to build “the best consumer agentic commerce experience.” > “i'll be in SF for the next 3 months,” Bansal wrote. “If you're working on evals, continously improving benchmarks or RL environments for long horizon tasks, please reach out :)” The reference to evaluations, benchmarks, reinforcement learning environments, and long-horizon tasks points to the core technical challenge Oro is trying to solve. Shopping agents must do more than respond to a prompt. They need to search, filter, reason through constraints, compare product details, and avoid brittle benchmark gaming. ## Why It Matters for Bittensor Oro’s YC acceptance gives Bittensor a more visible bridge into the startup world, serving as a beachhead for additional subnets to follow. The milestone also sharpens a broader question for crypto and AI companies about whether live token networks can become an advantage in startup formation. Oro’s subnet gives the company access to a competitive developer and miner ecosystem, a public performance layer, and a mechanism for rewarding improvement. Those features add complexity, but they also give Oro a way to coordinate outside contributors around a narrow AI objective. As Bittensor-natives know, it's a fantastic competitive advantage for the team. From here, Oro’s next phase will now run partly through YC’s startup environment and partly through Bittensor’s open subnet economy. Oro will therefore act as a useful case study for whether decentralized AI incentives can support a venture-scale consumer AI product without abandoning the live network that made the project distinctive.