Venice Token (VVV): Staking for a Share of a Private AI Service
Erik Voorhees’ Venice.ai and a token tied to its AI access
Venice Token (VVV) was issued on Base in January 2025 by Venice.ai, a generative AI service built around privacy. Staking VVV gives holders a share of Venice’s AI capacity for developers.
1. What Venice is
Venice was launched in May 2024 by Erik Voorhees, an early Bitcoin entrepreneur who founded the crypto exchange service ShapeShift. It offers writing, image generation and coding help using open-source AI models. Its main selling point is that conversations are not stored on company servers, only in the user’s browser; the idea is that even the company cannot see what users ask.
Venice also presents itself as ‘uncensored’ AI, with fewer restrictions on answers than big AI services. Ordinary users access it on the web or in apps, free or by subscription, while developers plug its models into their own products through an API. On the Crypto Nation map, VVV stands in Base City, because it was issued on Base.
2. How the token works
VVV launched on 27 January 2025 on Base, the layer-2 network (L2) built by Coinbase, and half of the initial supply was airdropped (given away free) to Venice users and Base’s AI communities. Its core use is staking: stakers can use a share of Venice’s API capacity in proportion to their stake, without paying per request, so developers can hold tokens instead of paying for usage.
Stakers also receive newly issued VVV as rewards. In 2025 Venice added DIEM, a token minted by locking staked VVV. Each DIEM gives one dollar of API credit every day and can be traded separately, like a transferable AI pass.
3. Ecosystem and milestones
Venice’s API is popular with developers building AI agents (programs that carry out tasks on their own), and that demand feeds back into VVV staking. VVV was listed on several exchanges soon after launch and became one of the best-known AI tokens on Base.
Since launch the company has revised its supply plans several times, including cutting the yearly issuance of new VVV. In the end, Venice’s subscriptions and API demand are what give the token its practical use: the more the service is used, the more a staker’s share of it matters.
4. Things to know
VVV’s value depends heavily on whether one company’s service keeps being used, and Venice itself decides on models and token policy, a centralised structure. New issuance can also dilute existing holders.
AI with fewer restrictions wins support on free-expression and privacy grounds but raises concerns that it can be used to create harmful content. AI rules are changing quickly from country to country, and Venice faces a great many competitors. The no-records promise, too, ultimately rests on trusting the company’s design and policies.
Written from information public up to October 2026. It does not recommend or rate any coin and is not investment advice. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.