Venice Burns $100M in Tokens After Conclude Its Airdrop

Bitcoin and crypto entrepreneur Erik Voorhees's Privacy-focused AI startup Venice concluded its airdrop on Wednesday after distributing 17.4 million Venice tokens (VVV) to more than 40000 people, then burning nearly 33 million unclaimed VVV, according to a blog post published by the firm.

Crypto AI startup Venice has burned nearly $100 million in an installment of unclaimed Venice tokens (VVV) after distributing 17.4 million VVV to more than 40,000 people and concluding its airdrop on Wednesday, the company announced.

The burn was conducted after the conclusion of Venice’s airdrop, which began at the end of January and ended on Wednesday.

The company was launched earlier this year with the goal of building a decentralized, open-source, and censorship-resistant AI to serve as an alternative to the so-called “walled gardens” such as OpenAI's ChatGPT. A startup founded by bitcoin and crypto entrepreneur Erik Voorhees is developing a decentralized and collective-owned large language model.

However, the startup faced pump-and-dump accusations as some of its team members sold VVV tokens at peak prices shortly after the token was launched.

Voorhees himself denied any wrongdoing and now, as part of what appears to be an effort to remediate the company's image, Venice has burned an installment of nearly $100 million in tokens that went unclaimed after the firm completed its 45-day airdrop on Wednesday.

"Now that the airdrop is over, what will be done with the unclaimed tokens?" a post published on Wednesday read.

"The unclaimed supply, a third of total VVV supply, is being burned today at dawn. This is the same unclaimed portion of the VVV supply that was used to bootstrap the Venice AI system."

Burning is a common practice in crypto. The exercise reduces a token’s supply and, assuming no change in demand, boosts the asset’s price, at least in theory. VVV was trading at $3.53, up 9.30%, at the time of press.

Venice also hinted at the fact that burning so many tokens would help mitigate some of the press around the crypto startup's fraud concerns.

"One percent was sold on launch day, with our blessing. As part of a coordinated effort, several social media accounts are continuing to report on this fact, and they are spinning it into a narrative against Venice. In addition, they are planning to report on the unclaimed portion of the VVV supply being burned."

The company went on to add that it bought back and burned all of the tokens previously sold by its employees, along with the unclaimed VVV.

"To resolve any lingering doubts about our commitment to the importance of unrestricted intelligence, Venice bought back the 1% of VVV that was sold, and these, too, were burned at dawn."