Originally published on Forbes Digital Assets, now republished worldwide under the copyright of Infinity Advisory LLC.
The internet made content abundant. But it never learned how to remember who made what.
Built for distribution, not attribution, today’s digital infrastructure fails to recognize authorship—let alone enforce it. That failure is now compounding. With AI models scraping everything from novels to music samples, intellectual property has become an open secret: valuable, vulnerable, and increasingly invisible.
Story wants to change that. Not by issuing takedown notices or clamping down on remix culture—but by reprogramming IP itself. The team behind the project, now backed by $140 million in funding and reportedly valued at up to $2.25 billion—though that figure hasn’t been officially confirmed by PIP Labs—has built a blockchain-native product that transforms IP into an on-chain asset class—programmable, enforceable, and built for scale in the AI era.
“We’re building for a world where creativity is abundant—but coordination is scarce,” says Seung Yoon “SY” Lee, Story’s co-founder and CEO.
In their words, “Creativity is the world’s most valuable resource.” But without provenance, it’s unprotected—and without infrastructure, it’s unrewarded.
Story is a blockchain-native product for registering, licensing, and monetizing intellectual property—spanning creative works, brand assets, and AI-generated datasets—from anime characters and music tracks to brand assets, blog posts, and training datasets. At its core, it transforms IP into a graph-based asset class. Works are represented as IP Assets—NFTs augmented with smart contracts—that embed licensing terms, attribution data, and payment logic directly on-chain.
These assets plug into foundational infrastructure designed to coordinate and enforce creative rights across jurisdictions. A mechanism called the Proof-of-Creativity Protocol tracks the origin and evolution of each asset, forming a legally sound and economically meaningful lineage graph. Layered atop this is the Programmable IP License (referred to as PIL)—a hybrid on-chain/off-chain framework that links smart contract terms (like royalties, usage permissions, and geographic restrictions) to real-world legal enforceability.
Each IP Asset functions like a programmable Lego brick. As Jason Zhao, Story’s co-founder and former DeepMind product lead, explains, “You can remix it, but the rules and revenue splits are embedded from the start.”
To power this, Story uses Token-Bound Accounts (via ERC-6551) to transform static NFTs into programmable IP entities. Each registered asset is issued a unique on-chain account—what the team calls an “IP Account”—that interacts with modules for licensing, royalties, and tokenization. Zhao describes it as simple but powerful: “From Ethereum to Solana to SUI, we wanted a system that made creativity programmable across ecosystems.”
“Blockchains create unstoppable digital markets,” Zhao said. “But we needed a use case beyond currency. IP was an emerging problem. Now, with AI, it’s a massive one.”
That remixability isn’t limited to humans. “From the solo artist to the AI agent—everyone is now a creator,” the team proclaims in its mainnet launch video.
Built with the Cosmos SDK and CometBFT consensus engine, Story is a new blockchain that also supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine, allowing developers to deploy Solidity contracts alongside more advanced IP-specific modules.
This vertical specialization allows Story to do what general-purpose chains often can’t: manage complex creative relationships at scale. The IP Core traverses asset graphs, automating rules and royalty flows. The Offchain Sync Core ensures compatibility with real-world documents, signatures, and legal identities. The Cross-Chain Core connects Story’s assets with other chains like Ethereum and Solana.
Zhao calls it “a brand new substrate for a new type of internet”—an infrastructure layer for ideas, not just tokens.
The AI Core, a fourth module, is in development. It will trace the provenance of machine-generated content and datasets, enabling models to license, credit, and compensate their training inputs. If an artist opts in to allow their work to be used in AI training, those permissions and royalties can be embedded from the start.
In Story’s model, ownership becomes visible—not just as metadata, but as infrastructure.
The most ambitious component may be the Programmable IP License, which bridges legal language and on-chain logic. It turns permissions, attribution, and royalty structures into enforceable smart contracts, while remaining compliant with frameworks like the Berne Convention.
Here’s what that looks like in practice: A creator uploads work to the IP Portal, configures licensing terms, and registers the asset on-chain. Another user downloads the content, remixes it, and pays to license their derivative. The original creator receives revenue automatically. The lineage, rights, and terms carry forward—all in a few clicks.
“It can happen through the Portal, an API, or directly through smart contracts,” the team says. “The rules—and the revenue—are automated.”
“Intellectual property has long been seen as something complicated—something only lawyers and big corporations deal with,” Zhao said. “People assume it’s inaccessible, that licensing is a bureaucratic nightmare, or that it’s impossible to protect and monetize IP in the age of AI. That’s a problem.”
“Story flips this narrative. What was once reserved for the elite is now democratized.”
The rallying cry—“Build once. Remix everywhere.”—isn’t just a tagline. It reflects a vision where IP is programmable, remixable, and monetized on-chain.
Remix culture isn’t new. From hip-hop to fan fiction, artists have always built on each other’s work. What’s been missing are legal and technical systems to support attribution and compensation.
Story’s graph structure enables automatic derivative tracking. Each node inherits licensing rules from its parent. Royalties flow through chains. If someone uploads a remix to a game or combines assets for an AI model, upstream IP holders are recognized and paid.
Lee compares it to the rise of Spotify: “They didn’t kill piracy by policing it. They just made it easier to do the right thing.”
As the team puts it: “IP is no longer static. It’s dynamic, forkable, programmable.”
The newly launched IP Portal, now in open beta, abstracts the complexity of smart contracts and composable IP into a clean interface. What was once reserved for legal teams at major studios is now available to anyone with a wallet and a few clicks. The Portal allows anyone to register, license, and monetize IP on-chain in minutes—no legal team, no platform fees.
Zhao calls this “programmable imagination”—a phrase that sounds poetic but is grounded in infrastructure.
“Right now, IP is stuck in slow-moving systems that weren’t designed for the internet age,” he said. “Making it programmable means turning IP into a dynamic, fluid asset—something that can be licensed, remixed, and monetized instantly.”
“The Portal makes that solvable—for everyone.” It’s a new baseline for IP participation—where zero take rates, embedded attribution, and on-chain licensing become the norm.
Since mid-2023, Story has raised $140 million across three funding rounds: a seed round, a $54 million Series A, and an $80 million Series B co-led by a16z Crypto and Polychain Capital.
A16z has led all three rounds—a rare “three-peat” seen previously with Coinbase.
Investors include Stability AI’s Scott Trowbridge, K11’s Adrian Cheng, collector Cozomo de’ Medici, and Bang Si-hyuk, founder of HYBE (home to BTS). While HYBE hasn’t officially adopted the protocol, Bang’s involvement signals interest from top-tier IP holders.
More than 200 developer teams are already building on Story, with over 20 million IP assets in development.
“There are many,” Zhao said, “but two stand out. Aria is pioneering IPFi with music, and David Goyer’s Inception franchise is rethinking storytelling on-chain. These aren’t just apps—they’re frameworks for entire economies.”
To accelerate adoption, Story launched Story Academy, a builder program with a 12-week incubator and a 6–7 week accelerator. Grants range from $10,000 to $100,000, with legal and ecosystem support from firms like Fenwick, Latham & Watkins, and Granderson Des Rochers.
Unlike many Web3 programs, Story Academy prioritizes remix logic, AI-native attribution, and licensing infrastructure—not just crypto-native apps.
“We’re not just building a protocol,” one team lead told me. “We’re building an economy of reuse.”
The native IP token powers transactions, licensing, validator staking, and eventually, protocol governance. In time, holders will vote on upgrades, templates, and grant programs.
Licensing rights could be fractionalized. Royalty streams might be tokenized and traded. IP-backed lending and licensing marketplaces are already being explored.
“Cultural assets evolve. They inspire new creations,” Zhao said. “Once on-chain, they become liquid, tradeable, and composable.”
Aria, for instance, is experimenting with royalty streams, fractional ownership, and permissionless licensing—all powered by IP.
To ensure rights enforcement, Story has integrated UMA’s optimistic oracle to resolve IP disputes on-chain. Anyone can challenge a registration, upload evidence, and trigger arbitration without involving costly legal counsel. Instead, UMA reviewers determine outcomes, and violations—like illegal registration or misuse—result in “tags” that block royalties, licensing, and derivatives.
“The rules are not just programmable,” Zhao said. “They’re defensible.”
The PIL itself is grounded in U.S. copyright law and designed for use on-chain and off-chain. As the protocol scales, Story will continue rolling out features to ensure enforceability and jurisdictional compatibility.
Story’s bet is that as content becomes infinite, the infrastructure for attribution and coordination becomes essential.
“Our goal is for Story to be so successful, it is invisible,” Zhao said. “Like TCP/IP, it should just be there—powering everything.”
Blockchains made money programmable. Story is doing the same for imagination—by turning IP into infrastructure.
Or, in the team’s own words: The internet of imagination needs a ledger. Story is building it.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of Infinity Advisory LLC and do not necessarily reflect the views of any affiliated organization. At the time of publication, a negligible amount of the IP token was held solely to test protocol functionality. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or investment advice.
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