Erik Voorhees on Who Really Owns the AI Stack
Спикеры
Erik Voorhees
— Основатель, Venice AI
Kain Warwick
— Основатель, Infinex и Synthetix
Taylor Monahan
— Руководитель отдела безопасности, MetaMask
Erik Voorhees discusses Venice's token-versus-equity structure, the deflationary VBV token plan, and why AI inference tokens are becoming a low-margin commodity. He also argues crypto rails are better suited for AI agents and that memecoins are non-accretive. The conversation covers Stripe's acquisition of OpenRouter, open-weight Chinese models, censorship layers, and government control risks in AI.
- Venice sold equity instead of VBV tokens and plans to buy back and burn tokens to create deflationary supply.
- AI inference and token sales are described as a commodity race to zero with tiny margins.
- Crypto rails are framed as the natural payment and transfer layer for AI agents and robots.
- Memecoins are criticized as speculative entertainment that does not grow the broader pie.
- Open-weight Chinese models such as GLM 5.3 are seen catching up at a fraction of closed-lab cost.
- The group discusses Stripe's purchase of OpenRouter and its crypto-to-AI pivot.
- Government control and censorship layers around AI are identified as key risks to US models.
Идеи
Venice token aligns users and gets deflationary
Erik argues most AI labs are private, so normal people cannot own a stake in their success. Venice has a token, VBV, that the company deliberately did not sell, and the strategy is to make VBV deflationary by buying back and burning tokens as the business grows, letting users and holders participate in Venice's upside.
Memecoins don't grow value; avoid them
Erik says memecoins became dominant partly because regulatory pressure made utility-token projects too risky, but memecoins are a race to the bottom: they move money around without growing the pie and are consumptive entertainment rather than accretive value.
Crypto rails win AI machine payments
Crypto is better financial tooling and natively digital money without political gatekeepers. Erik expects AI agents and robots to prefer crypto assets on decentralized rails over bank accounts, making crypto rails the least-friction way for machine value transfer.
AI inference tokens become unprofitable commodity
Erik says the cost of intelligence is falling dramatically and inference tokens are a commodity. Selling AI inference is a race to the bottom with extremely small margins, VC-subsidized undercutting, and an end-state where no one makes material money selling tokens.
Далее
This Unchained (Chopping Block) video, published August 21, 2026, features Erik Voorhees discussing VBV, MEMECOINS, BITO, AI inference providers. 4 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers: Erik Voorhees · Tickers: VBV, MEMECOINS, BITO, AI inference providers