Venice AI Burns $100 Million in Unclaimed VVV Tokens After Airdrop Ends

The Venice community airdrop has officially wrapped up. On Wednesday, roughly $100 million worth of unclaimed VVV tokens were permanently burned, removing them from circulation forever. This move underscores Venice’s commitment to its vision as a private, censorship-resistant artificial intelligence platform.

Built on the Ethereum Layer 2 Base network, Venice launched its VVV token on January 27, allocating half of its 100 million Genesis supply to users of Bitcoin and crypto AI community projects. After 45 days, more than 17.4 million tokens have been claimed by over 40,000 individuals, signaling strong early adoption.

Venice stands out in the crowded AI and blockchain space by merging generative AI with decentralized technology. The VVV token serves as a key to its ecosystem, allowing AI agents, bots, and developers to tap into its uncensored inference API without intermediaries like banks or human gatekeepers. This approach not only cuts costs but also sidesteps the limitations of traditional closed-source AI platforms.

For example, we have implemented Venice into our Bitcoin GPT AI chat, giving users the opportunity to try Venice for free and also use it to learn about cryptocurrencies. We also of course offer other AI chat models like Claude, OpenAI, Grok, and others.

For users who choose to stake VVV, there’s an added incentive of yield, though participation remains optional. With the burn of 32.6 million unclaimed tokens—representing 65% of the community allocation and a third of the total Genesis supply—the circulating pool has shrunk considerably. Still, the ecosystem will see an annual injection of 14 million new tokens, distributed to stakers and the platform based on API demand, with inflation expected to taper off over time.

Erik Voorhees, the founder of Venice, emphasized that the token isn’t about governance but about enabling cost-free access to the platform’s private inference capabilities.

Tokenomics and Team Commitment in Focus

The structure of Venice’s tokenomics offers a deeper look into its strategy. From the initial 100 million tokens minted, 25 million were set aside for over 100,000 eligible users, based on a December 31 snapshot, while another 25 million went to AI community protocols on Base, including projects like Virtuals and developers using Coinbase AgentKit.

Unlike many blockchain initiatives, Venice skipped pre-sales and venture capital funding, relying instead on its own resources. Of the remaining supply, 35 million tokens were allocated to the project itself, with 10 million designated for the team—25% unlocked at launch and the rest vesting over two years. An additional 10 million tokens were reserved for the Venice Incentive Fund, and 5 million went toward liquidity.

The team faced scrutiny early on when 1% of the unlocked supply was sold on launch day, a move Venice later addressed by repurchasing and burning those 1 million tokens. The project framed this as a gesture of goodwill to ease community concerns amid airdrop-related sell pressure. Venice has been vocal about its independent stance, noting that it avoided venture capital, pre-sale deals, and paid influencer endorsements. Liquidity was provided through a public pool on Base’s Aerodrome DEX, though the platform distanced itself from two contributors suspended after an investigation into irregular trading.

Founded last May by Erik Voorhees, a well-known figure in crypto and former ShapeShift CEO, Venice has grown rapidly. From 450,000 registered users at the token’s launch, it now boasts 870,000, processing over 1.1 million inference requests daily. The platform’s free tier includes access to leading open-source language models, PDF analysis, and image generation, while its pro version—featuring higher limits and specialized AI tools—drives a 62% surge in monthly recurring revenue.