Venice AI Token Surpasses $1.6 Billion Valuation Just Hours After Launch on Ethereum's Base Network

The Venice AI token just hit a total value of $1.6 billion. That’s right! This token, which gives private access to DeepSeek, achieved this impressive number just 10 hours ago.

Venice AI is a startup founded by Bitcoin advocate Erik Voorhees. They recently launched their token on Ethereum’s layer-2 network, called Base. Within just two hours of its launch, the Venice Token (VVV) reached a fully diluted valuation of over $1 billion. Amazing, isn’t it?

According to DEXScreener data, this milestone happened shortly after 6 PM UTC on January 27. The token's current fully diluted valuation is around $1.65 billion. Its market capitalization is at $306.4 million, with 25 million out of a total of 100 million tokens available to the public. Right now, there are over 13,200 token holders.

On January 27, Venice shared on X that anyone who buys and stakes VVV will get free ongoing access to their API. This API allows for private and uncensored generative text, images, and code using AI models, including the new DeepSeek R-1.

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI firm, has stirred up quite a buzz in the U.S. and crypto markets. Their R-1 model is said to compete with ChatGPT while being open source and requiring less computing power. However, some concerns have arisen about user data potentially being sent to China. Voorhees reassured users that when using R-1 through Venice, “none of it is going anywhere.”

Venice has also opened its API to the public. This is great news for AI agents, developers, and third-party apps. Out of the total 100 million VVV tokens, 25 million are set aside for 100,000 eligible Venice users. Another 25 million are for specific Base users, like those holding Aerodrome Finance (AERO) and Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) tokens.

About 35% of the tokens are allocated to Venice itself. Additionally, 10% is reserved for an “incentive fund,” and 5% is set aside for liquidity. Each year, 14 million tokens will be released. Venice made it clear that there was no presale for “outside investors,” and there’s no governance mechanism in place.

Since launching in May, Venice has gained over 400,000 registered users and handles 15,000 inference requests every hour. Before starting Venice, Voorhees was an early Bitcoin pioneer and later founded the crypto exchange ShapeShift in July 2014.