Vana VANA

Vana is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain network built around the idea of turning personal data into a financial asset. Users contribute private datasets for AI model training and, in exchange, gain ownership and control over that data through structures called Data DAOs, which let groups pool and govern datasets collectively.

The core mechanism is the Data Liquidity Pool, where contributed data is validated and converted into data tokens representing a stake in that pool's value. Validation runs through a Proof-of-Contribution system, which checks submissions against network standards before they count. Data contributors, validators, and DLP creators are paid in $VANA tokens for participating, which is the network's way of incentivizing both the supply of data and the work of verifying it.

Vana is not itself an AI model or a data marketplace with listed prices — it is infrastructure for pooling and tokenizing data, and what happens to that data after validation (which models train on it, what they're worth) sits outside what the protocol measures or guarantees. "Ownership" of a data token is a claim defined by the Data DAO's own rules, not a standardized legal property right, and those rules vary pool to pool. Proof-of-Contribution establishes that data met a pool's submission criteria; it does not establish that the underlying data is accurate, unique, or free of prior rights held by someone else. The token itself is classified across AI, smart-contract-platform, and several chain-ecosystem categories, and it is deployed on six separate networks (Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon) — a footprint that spreads liquidity and activity rather than concentrating it, which matters for anyone assuming a single canonical chain. Nothing in the source describes a fixed maximum supply, a revenue share, or a governance mechanism for $VANA beyond its use as an incentive payment, so none of those should be assumed.