Venice AI is a blockchain-powered generative artificial intelligence platform that prioritizes privacy and censorship resistance, offering text, image, video, and code generation capabilities. ^{[12] [1] [2] [9]}

Overview

Venice AI was created to provide an alternative to centralized AI platforms, allowing users to interact with AI models without concerns about data storage, surveillance, or censorship. The platform emphasizes privacy by storing user conversations locally in the browser rather than on company servers. As of April 2026, the platform serves over two million registered users. ^{[2] [5] [9] [13] [12]}​

History

Venice AI launched publicly in May 2024. The platform's founder is Erik Voorhees, also the founder and CEO of ShapeShift. Over the following months, Venice AI introduced several key features, including real-time web search with citations in July 2024 and an early version of its developer API in November 2024. ^{[12] [14]}​

In January 2025, the platform introduced its native token, the Venice Token (VVV), on the Base network, an Ethereum Layer 2 solution. The VVV token was designed to enable continuous and private access to Venice AI’s inference services through a staking model. Development continued with the addition of text-to-image generation in April 2025, followed by the introduction of the DIEM token in August 2025 to represent perpetual AI inference. The announcement of Venice V2 in October 2025 brought video generation capabilities to the platform. ^[12]​

By March 2026, Venice AI's fully diluted valuation (FDV) surpassed $600 million, and it became a recommended model provider for OpenClaw, an open-source autonomous AI agent platform. In April 2026, the platform announced it had reached two million registered users. ^{[14] [13]}​

Features

Venice AI offers a suite of generative AI tools with an emphasis on privacy and fewer content restrictions than many mainstream platforms. ^[12]​

Generative AI Tools

• Text Generation: The platform provides general chat, long-form writing, and research assistance using various open-source large language models (LLMs).
• Image Generation: Users can create images from text prompts via open-source models.
• Video Generation: Introduced with Venice V2, this feature allows for text-to-video and image-to-video creation, initially available for beta and Pro users.
• Real-time Web Search: Venice can access current information from the internet and provide responses with clickable source links.

These features are provided through different subscription tiers, including a free option with daily limits. ^[12]​

Developer API

Venice AI allows developers and autonomous agents to programmatically access its inference capacity through an API. Access is allocated either through staking the platform's native tokens or by paying with credits, eliminating the need for human intermediaries. ^[12]​

Subscription Tiers

Venice AI operates on a freemium model with both free and paid tiers. ^[12]​

• Free Tier: Offers limited access to core features, including private text, image, and code generation. Daily usage is capped at 10 text prompts and 15 image prompts.
• Pro Tier: Priced at 149 per year, this tier offers unlimited text generation, up to 1,000 images per day, access to advanced AI models, character creation, and the removal of image watermarks. It also includes a one-time grant of 1,000 credits for video generation or API use. Payments can be made with credit/debit cards, Bitcoin, or through Coinbase.

Subscriptions costing $1/month or more also contribute to the platform's token burn mechanism. ^{[12] [15]}​

Technology and Models

Venice AI utilizes open-source artificial intelligence models and decentralized infrastructure to ensure user interactions remain private and censorship-free. The platform does not store or review user prompts or conversations, safeguarding data confidentiality. Models used include DeepSeek's R-1, "Venice Uncensored 1.2" (trained on Bittensor's Subnet 4), glm-5.1, and access to Grok. ^{[2] [10] [4] [15] [13]}​

Although DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, has faced scrutiny for data collection practices, Venice AI states that its infrastructure is designed to prevent external data transmission when a user interacts with models on its platform. In March 2026, Venice AI also became a recommended model provider for OpenClaw, an open-source autonomous AI agent platform acquired by OpenAI. ^{[7] [11] [14]}​

Tokenomics

Venice AI integrates decentralized blockchain technology with its generative AI services through a dual-token system consisting of the Venice Token (VVV) and the DIEM token. The project stated there was no presale for external investors and does not employ a governance mechanism. ^{[14] [7]}​

Venice Token (VVV)

The Venice Token (VVV) is the native access token of the Venice AI platform, built on the Base network. Users who stake VVV tokens receive a continuous, pro-rata share of Venice AI’s total API inference capacity. This mechanism enables developers and AI agents to access private and censorship-free inference services without relying on intermediaries. In addition to API access, staked VVV earns an emissions-based yield. Venice has also implemented an "EXPAND allocation" program to provide rewards directly to VVV token holders. ^{[12] [13]}​

The total supply of VVV is 100 million units. Of this amount, 25% was allocated to over 100,000 eligible Venice users, and another 25% was distributed to specific Base network users, including holders of Aerodrome Finance (AERO) and Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) tokens. Venice retained 35% for its treasury and 10% for an incentive fund. The remaining 5% was reserved for liquidity, with an annual issuance plan of 14 million tokens. ^{[2] [3] [4] [8]}​

DIEM Token

Launched in August 2025, DIEM is an ERC-20 token on the Base network that represents a right to perpetual AI inference. Each DIEM token entitles its holder to $1 per day of Venice AI's API credits indefinitely. DIEM can only be minted by locking staked VVV. The underlying VVV continues to earn 80% of its normal staking yield while locked. DIEM tokens can be staked for API access, transferred, or traded on secondary markets. Burning a DIEM token unlocks the originally staked VVV. ^{[12] [14]}​

Token Burn Mechanism

Venice AI has implemented an on-chain, verifiable token burn mechanism for VVV. A subscription to the platform costing 1,000 worth of VVV daily. ^[15]​