Venice founder Erik Voorhees says crypto's real job was never speculation. It's becoming the rails AI agents actually need. Plus, why he sold equity, not tokens.
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Stripe bought OpenRouter this month in one of the cleanest crypto-to-AI pivots yet, and Erik Voorhees says most of the industry drew the wrong lesson from it.
Voorhees, founder and CEO of Venice AI, joins Kain Warwick and Taylor Monahan to argue that crypto's job was never to serve crypto people, it was to become the financial rails a decentralized AI future actually needs. He pushes back on the instinct to abandon tokens for pure AI plays, and on the assumption that America deserves to win the AI race just because it is America.
They get into why Voorhees sold Venice's equity but refused to sell its VVV tokens, why he says the big labs are losing money "hand over fist" subsidizing $200-a-month plans, how DeepSeek reset the cost curve for inference, and why he calls the moderation layer sitting inside today's AI models "deceptive."
His answer for who should actually win the AI race has nothing to do with flags.

Hosts:
<ul>
 <li><a href="https://x.com/kaiynne">⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</a> - Host of Uneasy Money and Founder of Infinex and Synthetix
</li>
 <li><a href="https://x.com/tayvano_">⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</a> - Co-host of Uneasy Money and Security Expert
</li>
</ul>
Guest:
<ul>
 <li><a href="https://x.com/kaiynne">⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</a><a href="https://x.com/erikvoorhees">Erik Voorhees</a> - Founder and CEO of Venice AI
</li>
</ul>
Timestamps
🤝 01:51 Why Stripe buying OpenRouter is one of crypto's cleanest AI pivots
🪙 04:02 Why Erik says he can't pivot out of crypto even while building an AI company
⚖️ 12:43 Crypto has principles, AI didn't: unpacking the two industries' DC playbooks
💧 27:58 1inch Aqua: See how shared liquidity keeps LPs' tokens in their wallet at<a href="https://1inch.com/aqua"> https://1inch.com/aqua</a>
💰 28:44 Why Erik sold Venice's equity but refuses to sell its VVV tokens
🧩 42:51 Inside Venice's strategy for aggregating every major AI model in one app
📉 49:15 Why Erik says labs are bleeding money on $200 plans, and how DeepSeek reset AI pricing
🌐 57:30 Why Erik says America doesn't deserve to win the AI race by default
🔓 01:02:41 Why Erik has 'zero faith' in politics and trusts decentralized tech instead
🕵️ 01:09:56 Why Erik calls the moderation layer inside AI models 'deceptive' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

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