About

Vana is open data infrastructure for what it calls human-grounded AI: a network over which personal data moves only with the permission of the person it belongs to, and with a record of every access. The project addresses a familiar imbalance — the data people generate online creates value for platforms and AI systems, but rarely for the people who produced it. Vana lets a person connect the accounts that hold their data, grant specific apps or AI systems the right to read specific records, revoke that right at any time, and receive the value their data generates.

The project grew out of the MIT Media Lab and shares the data-ownership principles that Tim Berners-Lee brought to MIT with the Solid project. Vana Foundation is the neutral steward of the network, while OpenDataLabs, led by co-founder and CEO Anna Kazlauskas, is the core contributor that builds and operates the products governments and industry run on it. Vana is also known for Data Collectives, where people pool data into sets that AI developers could not assemble elsewhere and share in what those sets earn.

Key Features

Data portability with consent: A person connects their accounts and services, then decides which app or AI may read which data, for what purpose, and for how long — permissions that can be revoked at any time.

Recorded grants: Every permission issued, used, or revoked is recorded on the network, giving each person an auditable history of who touched their data.

Operations instead of raw data: After the Vega upgrade, an app can request a computed answer — for example, how the user slept last week — and receive a number with lineage information, without ever holding the underlying records.

Protocol-governed encryption: The network holds keys such that nothing, including a user's own personal server, can decrypt data without a valid grant; end-to-end portability completes in roughly 50 milliseconds in production.

Data Collectives: Groups of people aggregate their data into collective sets and share in the earnings those sets generate, combining portability at scale.

Personal Data Portability Protocol (PDPP): Vana wrote the first open standard for personal data movement and contributed it to the Linux Foundation as a Community Specification; Vana is its first implementation.

Fee sponsorship: Apps can sponsor network fees on behalf of their users, so people can use Vana-based apps without holding tokens or paying per read.

Pricing & Fees

Pricing: Individual use of the network is mediated by apps, which may sponsor fees so users pay nothing directly; reads under live grants carry fees paid in VANA or stablecoins such as USDC. Check the official site for current details.
Network scale: The project reports 1.5 million users, more than 20 million transactions, and over 100 community-built apps and Data Collectives.
Open standard: The PDPP specification is published at pdpp.dev, with Vana Foundation as steward and a member of Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust.
Documentation: The whitepaper (December 2024), the Vega upgrade addendum (September 2026), and developer docs are available at vana.org and docs.vana.org.

Who It's For

Vana is built for three main groups. Individuals who want to reclaim control of the data they generate and potentially earn from it can use the Vana App to move their data between services with permission and a record. Developers building AI applications can start from user-consented data instead of beginning from zero, using grants and operations to access it responsibly. Organizations — including governments, AI labs, and enterprises, served through OpenDataLabs' products such as Context Gateway — can build against the PDPP standard for trusted data access.

FAQ

What is Vana?Vana is an open network for data portability that lets personal data move between apps and AI systems only under the permission of the person it belongs to, with every read recorded.

Is Vana free to use?Apps built on Vana can sponsor network fees for their users, so individuals can use them without holding tokens or paying per read; underlying network fees are paid in VANA or stablecoins like USDC.

Who built and governs Vana?Vana Foundation, co-founded by Art Abal as Managing Director, stewards the network and the PDPP standard, while core contributor OpenDataLabs, led by CEO Anna Kazlauskas, builds the products governments and industry run on it.

How does Vana protect privacy?Data is protected by protocol-governed encryption that prevents decryption without a valid grant, and apps can receive computed answers called operations without ever holding the raw data.

What is the VANA token used for?VANA is the network's token; each read of a person's data under a live grant carries a fee, and stakers who back data-carrying operators are paid from the fees the network earns.

About

Key Features

Pricing & Fees

Who It's For

FAQ

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