Source: Golden Finance, Vana official website, white paper, Twitter. Compiled by Golden Finance.
On December 13, 2024, Binance announced the launch of the 62nd project on Binance Launchpool - Vana (VANA), aimed at a native EVM-compatible L1 blockchain for users to hold data. Users can contribute BNB and FDUSD to the VANA reward pool on the Launchpool website starting December 14, 2024, at 08:00 (UTC+8) to earn VANA. The VANA activity lasts for a total of 2 days.
Reminder: Binance will be the first platform to list this token; any claims of selling the token before the specified timeline are false advertisements.
New Coin Listing
Binance will list Vana (VANA) on December 16, 2024, at 18:00 (UTC+8), and open trading markets for VANA/USDT, VANA/BNB, VANA/FDUSD, and VANA/TRY, subject to seed label trading rules.
I. Launchpool Details
Token Name: Vana (VANA)
Total Genesis Token Supply: 112,641,600 VANA (93.87% of the maximum token supply)
Maximum Token Supply: 120,000,000 VANA
Initial circulating supply at Binance listing: 30,084,000 VANA (25.07% of the maximum token supply)
Total Launchpool: 4,800,000 VANA (4% of the maximum token supply)
Network Details: Vana Network Explorer
II. Introduction to Vana (VANA)
1. What is Vana?
Vana is a distributed private user data network aimed at enabling user-owned AI. Users own and manage the AI models they contribute and profit from them. Developers can access cross-platform data to support personalized applications and train cutting-edge AI models.
Vana originated from a research project at MIT in 2018, dedicated to allowing users to own their data and the AI models they create. It is fully open-source and operates on a permissionless decentralized network. The Open Data Foundation is committed to promoting the widespread adoption of the Vana protocol, while other contributing organizations, such as Corsali, focus on research and development.
In the Web2 era, platform companies commercialized by collecting user data without compensation. For example, ByteDance's Toutiao generated hundreds of billions of RMB in advertising revenue in a single year. Even though content creators received some share on the platform, the core interests remained firmly controlled by the company.
In the Web3 era, this phenomenon has become even more pronounced. Reddit alone generated $203 million in 2024 through data authorization agreements with AI companies, yet users contributing content to the platform received almost no earnings. This imbalance drove the birth of Vana.
2. Technical Architecture
Just as Bitcoin achieved trustless value transfer, Ethereum achieved programmable state transitions, Vana achieves programmable data ownership, with its core principle being personal data sovereignty.
2.1 The Double Spending Problem of Data
The core challenge of assetizing data lies in the fact that, unlike other digital assets, the economic value of data depends on controlled access—once data becomes public, its market value is lost. Traditional blockchains emphasize public verification, making them unsuitable for handling private data. Vana addresses this issue by combining private data hosting with public ownership records.
The blockchain maintains the following global state:
• Data Ownership Records: Encrypted proof of data ownership.
• Access Rights: Who can access which data, and under what conditions.
• Proof of Verification: Proof of data quality and authenticity.
• On-chain Collective Contract and Token Balances: Economic rights and governance.
Although the data itself is stored on encrypted personal servers or trusted secure areas, the blockchain allows for programmable control over data access conditions and how profits flow back to data creators.
2.2 Core Components
Personal servers provide a secure foundation for data sovereignty, allowing users to choose to operate these servers on local devices, trusted service providers, or lightweight clients.
Data Liquidity Pools (DLPs) serve as the coordinating layer for collective data assets, managing data verification rules, access permissions, and token distribution.
Trusted Secure Area provides a trusted execution environment (TEE) for private computation, completing complex operations without exposing the data.
2.3 State Transitions in the Data Economy
Vana addresses the 'double spending' problem of data through a combination of privacy protection and programmable access rights. Data transactions are treated as state transitions, with each transaction updating the global state while handling data and economic affairs.
These technological foundations support the subsequent creation, governance, and large-scale monetization of collective data assets.
3. Vana's Vision
Vana's goal is to break the existing data economy model, allowing users to regain ownership and control over their own data, and to directly benefit from training AI models with that data, becoming the masters of their own data.
III. Founding Team
Vana was co-founded by two Filipino entrepreneurs, Anna Kazlauskas and Art Abal:
Anna Kazlauskas: With a background in computer science and economics, she participated in Ethereum mining early on and conducted data research at international financial institutions. She also served as a policy advisor to the Prime Minister of East Timor, designing a legal system based on equality for all.
Art Abal: Master's in Public Policy from Harvard University, previously led innovative data collection methods at AI training data provider Appen.
The two collaborated on the TOCA project, providing low-income individuals in the Philippines with opportunities to earn rewards through data contributions, laying the foundation for the development of Vana.
IV. Token Economics
VANA is the native token of the Vana Network, powering its ecosystem and supporting secure, user-owned, decentralized data transactions. It plays a central role in the network's multi-token ecosystem.
Supply Overview
• Total Supply: 120,000,000 $VANA
• Ecosystem and Community Allocation: 66.9%
• Circulating Supply at TGE: 28.5%
Uses of VANA Tokens
• Network Security: Protects network security by supporting a validator mechanism through staking.
• Governance Voting: Holders can participate in governance decisions.
• Transaction Fees: Used to pay for network operational costs.
• DataDAO Participation: A core participation tool for data liquidity pools.
• Data Access Currency: Used to purchase and trade data access rights.
The total supply of VANA tokens is 120 million, of which 44% will be allocated to the community (unlocking over 36 months), 22.9% will be allocated to the ecosystem (unlocking over 48 months), 18.8% will be allocated to core contributors (part unlocking after 1 year + 4 years unlocking), and 14.2% will be allocated to investors (part unlocking after 1 year + 3 years unlocking). The circulating supply at TGE (Token Generation Event) is 28.5%.
