The Venice AI token, valued at $1.6 billion, gives holders exclusive access to DeepSeek.
In just a few hours, Venice AI, which offers private access to DeepSeek’s AI, hit a total valuation of more than $1 billion with its newly introduced token.
Erik Voorhees, a Bitcoin advocate, founded Venice AI, a privacy-driven AI platform. The platform now features a token on Ethereum’s layer-2 network, Base.
Just two hours after launch, the token saw its fully diluted valuation soar to $1 billion.
As per DEXScreener data, the Venice Token (VVV) reached a fully diluted value surpassing $1 billion shortly after its launch on Jan. 27, hitting this mark just after 6 pm UTC.
The Venice Token (VVV) currently holds a fully diluted value of $1.65 billion, with a market cap of $306.4 million, following the release of 25 million tokens from its total supply of 100 million.
The token now has just over 13,200 holders, based on information from Basescan.
On January 27, Venice posted on X that those who buy and stake VVV will enjoy free, continuous access to its API for private and uncensored generative content like text, images, and code, utilizing AI models like the newly released DeepSeek R-1.
The release of DeepSeek’s R-1 model has caused a ripple effect in the US and crypto markets, as it is claimed to be as effective as ChatGPT but open source and requiring fewer computational resources.
Concerns have arisen over DeepSeek’s model allegedly collecting user data for China, but Voorhees confirmed that when users access R-1 through Venice, “none of it is going anywhere.”
Venice has opened its API for use by AI agents, developers, and third-party applications.
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From the total supply of 100 million VVV tokens, Venice has designated 25 million for 100,000 qualified Venice users, while an additional 25 million go to specific Base users, including Aerodrome Finance and Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) token holders.
Venice has received 35% of the tokens, with 10% going into an “incentive fund” and 5% allocated for liquidity. Furthermore, Venice will release 14 million tokens each year.
Venice clarified that the presale did not include “outside investors,” and it had no governance structure in place.
Since its debut in May, Venice has seen over 400,000 users sign up and averages 15,000 inference requests per hour.
Prior to Venice, Voorhees was known as a Bitcoin pioneer and founded ShapeShift, a crypto exchange, back in July 2014.
