Venice AI’s VVV Drops 50% as Insider Trading Concerns Swirl
Newly launched Venice AI's VVV token nosedived as much as 50% as insider trading allegations led to a drop in early sentiment for the hyped product.Venice AI launched on Monday as an AI platform on the Base network that allows users to access China’s DeepSeek with a layer of privacy. It zoomed to a $1 billion market capitalization from a starting cap of $20 million on Monday on its appeal of offering private, uncensored AI inference access without per-request fees.It was also listed on Coinbase on its first day — becoming one of rare assets listed on the exchange on the day of launch — which may have helped propel the move. But sentiment took a hit Tuesday night on reports of insiders making millions of dollars from the launch.Two contributors of launch partner Aerodrome Finance purchased a hoard of tokens shortly after it went live on the platform — but before any public announcements — with the position going from $50,000 to $1 million under an hour.https://x.com/chadderbiz/status/1884249914697474400Aerodrome suspended the two contributors after community backlash: “The timing of a small percentage of the trading activity around the $VVV launch was flagged by internal monitoring in less than 30 minutes – triggering an internal investigation.”“This investigation resulted in suspending two contributors within three hours of launch. We are continuing the investigation and will take all appropriate further action,” the team said.