Private AI Tools Drive Venice Token and Near Rallies
The recent rallies of Venice Token's VVV and Near have been attributed to growing demand for private AI tools rather than a broader rotation into crypto AI tokens. Fire Hustle, an analyst, argues that these movements were driven by a specific narrative surrounding privacy in AI, alongside project-level catalysts.
Venice Token, whose native token is VVV, gained significant attention after controversy surrounding AI-assisted work on the Navier-Stokes equations. The dispute over whether user prompts could have influenced OpenAI's system amplified concerns about AI data privacy. Venice's product proposition is anonymous AI access, and it added OpenAI's GPT Image 2.5 model for anonymous use on the same day it conducted its largest token burn.
Near joined the move after its team announced that users could privately swap into VVV through near.com and stake it for Venice Pro access. The integration uses Near's AI cloud and encryption stack. However, Fire Hustle notes that most AI tokens failed to follow the leaders, with Bittensor's TAO rising over 20%, while FET gained about 10%.
The crypto AI category remains below $20 billion in value, down sharply from roughly $70 billion in December 2024. By contrast, privacy coins have expanded from around $7 billion a year ago to about $34 billion, led largely by Zcash.