The burn was conducted after the conclusion of Venice’s airdrop, which began at the end of January and ended on Wednesday.
Venice Burns One Third of Total Token Supply
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Crypto AI Startup Venice Burns $100M in Tokens
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 40,000 people, then burning nearly 33 million unclaimed VVV, according to a blog post published by the firm.
The company was formed with the intention of providing a decentralized, open source, and censorship-resistant AI platform to compete with the so-called “walled gardens” such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But controversy broke out when pump-and-dump accusations were levied against the firm as some of its team raked in millions in profit from selling VVV tokens at peak prices soon after the token went live.
Voorhees denied any wrongdoing and now, as part of what appears to be an effort to remediate the company’s image, Venice has burned roughly $100 million worth of tokens that went unclaimed after the firm concluded its 45-day airdrop on Wednesday.
“Now that the airdrop is over, what will be done with the unclaimed tokens,” the post reads. “The unclaimed supply, a third of total VVV supply, worth roughly $100,000,000, was burned today at dawn.”
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 reporting, according to data from Coinbase.
Venice also hinted at the fact that burning so many tokens would help mitigate some of the negative press around the lingering fraud concerns.
“One percent was sold on launch day, with our blessing,” the company explained. “Several social media accounts spun this into a negative narrative against Venice,” the firm added. The post goes on to explain that Venice bought back and burned all 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,” the company confirmed.
