Morning Minute: Venice’s VVV Token Soars After OpenAI Dispute
VVV jumped 34% on Tuesday to $24.77 on a massive spike in volume. The catalyst was a public dispute between an NYU mathematician and OpenAI over credit for fluid dynamics proofs.
The details are messy and contested. The mathematician has said outright he isn’t accusing anyone of misusing his data. OpenAI has denied accessing it.
But the question that spread across X and Hacker News was simpler than the dispute itself: could a researcher’s private conversations with a chatbot end up informing a competitor’s work? Nobody has shown that happened. The point is that a large number of people found the question plausible.
That’s the argument Venice has been making since January 2025. The project is Erik Voorhees’s, the ShapeShift founder. The pitch is an AI platform where prompts stay on the user’s device rather than sitting on a company’s servers. They rely on open-source models, with no content filtering and no account required.
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.
The VVV Token and Its Mechanics
The VVV token works as an access key rather than a governance chip. Stake VVV, receive a proportional share of daily API inference capacity.
A second token, DIEM, is minted by locking staked VVV. It delivers $1 per day of API credit in perpetuity.
Emissions have been stepped down repeatedly. The token launched at 14 million a year. That fell to 2.5 million as of September 1, with 2 million scheduled for October. A portion of revenue buys VVV on the open market and burns it.
Venice said in August it passed a $100 million annualized revenue run rate. That was up from $70 million a month earlier.
VVV was among the day’s top alt movers at +38%, hitting a new ATH and joining LIT in that category.
Why Privacy Became the Story
It’s clear that privacy is a major narrative this cycle. Zcash’s ZEC token just broke out of a 9-year range to new ATHs over $1,200. Many are calling it to run to 0.1 BTC this cycle.
The reason is an increase in the need for wealth privacy as politicians roll out things like billionaire taxes. Now, the case for private AI inference is becoming stronger.
Any whiff that the frontier labs are taking ideas from their users and leveraging for their own discoveries will receive pushback at the highest levels. A crypto protocol offers a strong alternative, with a product already backed by big revenue.
It’s a strong narrative headed into the next bull cycle. VVV likely just cemented itself on the “top alts to watch” list for the next few years.
Crypto Majors and Market Moves
Crypto majors are green up 1-5%. BTC is +2% at $79.5k. ETH is +2% at $2,510. SOL is +2% at $104. HYPE is +5% at $86.70. ZEC is +9% at $1,264.
Top alt movers include VVV (+38%), NEAR (+14%) and LIT (+6%). Both VVV and LIT hit new ATHs on the day.
Oil is +1% at $95. Gold is +0.2% at $4,450. Stock futures are red as oil continues to rise. The DOW is -0.6%. Nasdaq is -0.5%.
Visa is pairing VisaNet settlement data with onchain lending tools. The move helps fintechs and stablecoin card programs borrow working capital. Visa’s own stablecoin settlement volume is now running above a $20 billion annualized rate.
Cronos rolled back 10,961 blocks to reverse $111.2 million tied to the Tectonic exploit. That erased one hour and 54 minutes of settled transactions, including activity unrelated to the attack. $9.19 million is still gone.
Blockstream is negotiating with the Liquid hackers for the remaining 598.5 BTC, worth about $47 million. The hackers returned 3,400 of the roughly 4,000 BTC drained from the sidechain.
The Ethereum Foundation set a December 2029 deadline to make transactions, validators, and data storage quantum-resistant. Five hard forks are planned after next year’s Hegotá upgrade, at roughly one every 7.2 months.
Corporate Treasuries and ETFs
The Bitcoin ETFs saw $47M in net outflows on Tuesday. The ETH ETFs saw $24M in outflows.
Strategy bought no Bitcoin in the week to September 7. Instead, it spent $176.3 million repurchasing STRC, a week after ending a two-month drought. The company doubled its credit securities buyback authorization to $2 billion.
Bitmine bought 28,086 ETH last week, worth about $70 million. That lifted holdings to 5.93 million ETH, roughly 4.9% of supply. 85% is staked, with annualized staking revenue projected at $330 million.
Strive added 1,375 BTC for $109 million at an average of $79,281. That lifted holdings to 24,531 BTC. 70% of last week’s capital was raised through SATA preferred stock, now at $999 million notional.
Meme Coin Tracker
Meme leaders were mostly flat. DOGE is +2%. SHIB is even. PEPE is +3%. PENGU is even. TRUMP is even. SPX is -2%.
Robinhood chain leaders were also mostly flat. Pons is +7% to $540M. AI is -5% at $225M. Cashcat is +3% at $185M. Top movers included ZZZ (+300%), Orbio (+110%), Ubik (+33%) and astro (+300x).
Solana had a big day. Stonk is +50%. Useless is +30%. Cate is +75%. Ansem is -3% at $175M.
The Stonkfun ecosystem tokens soared on the back of Stonk popping 50%. KNOTS and PURR took the 2 and 3 spots behind ZCAT. Several tokens were up 2-4x.
Protocol Revenue and Airdrops
Hyperliquid reclaimed the number 4 spot in protocol revenue with $1.8M on the day. Pump.fun is at number 5 with $1.6M. Robinhood Chain and Pons fell to 8-9 respectively.
Stonkfun did $1.34M in revenue yesterday. That’s its 3rd $1M+ day in a row.
Circle agreed to buy Tazapay for $400 million in stock. It’s its biggest acquisition since Poloniex in 2018. Tazapay is a Singapore payments firm that moves $25 billion a year across 100 markets. Roughly 60% of its volume is already in stablecoins.
NFTs
NFT leaders were mostly flat. Punks are even at 30 ETH.
The VVV move shows how a single dispute can shift attention. The math fight did not prove anything about data misuse. It proved that enough people found the risk real to push a token to a new high.
Key Numbers
- VVV +34% to $24.77 on Tuesday; +38% among top alt movers, new ATH
- BTC +2% at $79.5k; ETH +2% at $2,510; SOL +2% at $104; HYPE +5% at $86.70
- ZEC +9% at $1,264, new ATH over $1,200
- Strategy bought no Bitcoin; spent $176.3M on STRC
- Bitmine bought 28,086 ETH, holdings at 5.93M ETH
- Cronos rolled back 10,961 blocks, reversing $111.2M
- Stonkfun did $1.34M revenue, 3rd straight $1M+ day
- Circle to buy Tazapay for $400M in stock
- Bitcoin ETFs saw $47M outflows; ETH ETFs saw $24M outflows
The dispute may fade. The question it raised will not.
Source: decrypt.co
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