Venice AI Token (VVV) Skyrockets to $1.6B Valuation, Granting Exclusive Access to DeepSeek AI Model

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’ Venice AI platform, which offers private access to DeepSeek’s generative AI, has hit a total valuation of over $1 billion with its new token, according to data from DEXScreener.

The fully diluted valuation reached $1 billion just two hours after the token's launch.

As per DEXScreener data, the Venice Token (VVV) reached a fully diluted valuation of over $1 billion shortly after its launch on January 27, hitting this mark just after 6 pm UTC.

The Venice Token (VVV) currently has a fully diluted valuation of $1.65 billion, with a market capitalization of $306.4 million, following the release of 25 million tokens from its total supply of 100 million.

According to information from Basescan, the token has just over 13,200 holders.

On January 27, Venice posted on X that those who buy and stake VVV will get free, continuous access to its API for private and uncensored generative content, such as text, images, and code, using AI models like the recently released DeepSeek R-1.

The release of DeepSeek’s R-1 model has created a buzz in the U.S. and crypto markets, as it is touted to be as powerful as ChatGPT but open-source and requiring fewer computational resources.

There have been concerns about DeepSeek’s model allegedly collecting user data for China, but Voorhees has stated 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.

From the total supply of 100 million VVV tokens, Venice has earmarked 25 million for 100,000 qualified Venice users, while another 25 million went to specific Base users, including Aerodrome Finance and Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) token holders.

Venice itself has received 35% of the tokens, with 10% going into an “incentive fund” and 5% allocated for liquidity. Additionally, Venice will be releasing 14 million tokens each year.

Venice has stated that the presale did not involve “external investors” and that it has no governance structure in place.

Since its launch in May, Venice has seen over 400,000 users sign up and averages 15,000 inference requests per hour.

Before Venice, Voorhees was known as a Bitcoin pioneer and founded the crypto exchange ShapeShift back in July 2014.