Venice airdrop ends with $100 million in unclaimed VVV tokens burned

Venice has completed its community airdrop, with approximately $100 million worth of unclaimed VVV tokens burned on Wednesday, making those assets permanently irretrievable.

Venice is a private, censorship-resistant artificial intelligence platform built on open-source models and powered by decentralized infrastructure. The VVV token merges blockchain and generative AI, enabling AI agents, bots and developers to access decentralized, uncensored inference via its API, bypassing human and banking intermediaries, and lowering costs and friction compared to closed-source AI platforms. Users who stake the tokens are granted a yield and ongoing access to the Venice API at zero-marginal cost, though token use is optional.

Venice launched its VVV token on the Ethereum Layer 2 Base network on Jan. 27, with half of the 100 million tokens created at Genesis claimable by Venice users and crypto AI community projects until today.

In the 45 days since, more than 17.4 million VVV have been claimed by over 40,000 people, according to details from Venice shared with The Block. The project described the tokens as now "broadly dispersed," meaning its "next phase can begin."

The unclaimed 32.6 million VVV now burned represents 65% of the community allocation and a third of the total Genesis supply, significantly reducing the amount of tokens that could have been in circulation. However, some 14 million VVV tokens will still be added annually, creating an initial inflation rate of 14% that will decline over time, distributed to stakers and Venice based on the "Utilization Rate" — a metric that measures the demand for Venice's API.

The price of VVV is up around 14% over the past 24 hours at $3.27, according to The Block's Venice Price page , though it has fallen significantly in recent weeks alongside the broader crypto market correction.

VVV tokenomics and team token burn

Based on a Dec. 31 snapshot, of the 100 million minted supply, 25 million tokens were allocated to over 100,000 eligible Venice users and 25 million to AI community protocol accounts on the Base blockchain, such as Virtuals, agents like Luna, aixbt and VaderAI, and approximately 200 registered Coinbase AgentKit developers. There was no pre-sale of VVV tokens. 

Of the remaining Genesis supply, 35 million VVV (35%) were allocated to Venice, of which 10 million tokens (10%) were granted to the project’s team, with 25% unlocked upfront and the rest vesting over 24 months. A further 10 million tokens (10%) were set aside for the “Venice Incentive Fund” and 5 million (5%) for liquidity deployment.

From the 2.5% token supply unlocked for the team at Genesis, 1% was sold on launch day "with our blessing," Venice said. However, following criticism from some community members alongside the ongoing airdrop sell pressure, Venice bought back the 1% of VVV that was sold to "resolve any lingering doubts about our commitment." These 1 million tokens have also now been burned , Venice confirmed.

"Venice has sought no VC funding. Venice engaged in no pre-sale or OTC deals. Venice paid no KOLs for their affection. Venice stands alone in this among its peers," the project said on Wednesday.

Venice also provided liquidity via a public pool on the Base DEX Aerodrome at launch. However, two Aerodrome contributors were subsequently suspended following an investigation into suspicious trading activity.

What is Venice?

Venice was launched last May by Erik Voorhees, a prominent crypto figure and the founder and former CEO of the exchange platform ShapeShift. Voorhees was the sole investor with no need for outside funding, he told The Block at the time. Since the token launch, Venice claims to have grown from 450,000 to 870,000 registered users, making over 1.1 million inference requests per day, with the project's monthly recurring revenue jumping 62% alongside a slew of new app features.

The platform offers free access to features including multiple leading open-source LLM models, PDF analysis and image and code generation. Revenue is generated via its pro version, which provides higher limits on interactions with AI models and AI Character features, as well as access to the topical DeepSeek platform.

Venice also unveiled new branding on Wednesday in collaboration with Asimov Collective to create a "comprehensive design language worthy of Venice" and a "visual identity inspired by mankind's timeless quest for knowledge; the pursuit of unrestricted intelligence."

The project plans a new image engine, social feed, native mobile apps, agentic characters and tokenomics updates over the coming months.