Key Insights and Takeaways
- Story’s growing ecosystem of over 135 projects spans AI, DeFi, IP finance, and creative industries, including integrations with major brands and media platforms.
- Technical integrations such as Claude’s MCP and Bridged USDC enhance AI compatibility and liquidity security.
- Strategic partnerships with Google Cloud, World ID, and OKX Ventures support ecosystem development and IP rights enforcement.
- The IP Portal streamlines rights registration, licensing, and monetization, with integrations for creator-led revenue generation.
- The platform is entering a new phase focused on dynamic IP licensing for AI, expanding into new sectors like DeSci, sports, and UGC monetization.
Story: An Overview
One of the notable mainnet launches of 2025 was Story, a blockchain project focused on the intellectual property (IP) sector, which is estimated to represent a $61 trillion market. The platform is a purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain with the specific goal of enabling the tokenization and management of various forms of IP.
Story introduces a framework that aims to convert intellectual property into a digital asset class, with a view toward expanding monetization options. This approach is particularly relevant given the increasing economic value tied to media, scientific innovation, branding, and the emergence of AI-generated content.
Traditional IP systems are often criticized for being outdated, inefficient, and lacking transparency. Story Protocol addresses these limitations by proposing a blockchain-based infrastructure that supports on-chain provenance, licensing, and collaborative workflows. The platform is intended to provide creators with tools to manage and protect their IP in both conventional and AI-integrated environments.
A key platform component is the Programmable IP License, a smart contract template that encodes legal terms directly into blockchain-based agreements. This tool is set to improve the efficiency and transparency of IP licensing and monetization processes.
Major Events in 2025
Even prior to its official launch, an active ecosystem began to develop around the Story Protocol, with early interest focused on exploring diverse applications for intellectual property as a digital asset. At the time of writing, more than 135 projects are building on the platform, covering sectors such as artificial intelligence, blockchain infrastructure, decentralized finance (DeFi), IP-based financial instruments, and consumer-facing decentralized applications.
Notable participants in the ecosystem include Ablo (AI-driven fashion design), Impossible Finance (crypto investment solutions), Mahojin (generative AI), and Aria (music IP monetization). The number of ecosystem projects continues to grow in parallel with the network’s development and adoption.
At the same time, other notable events happened in the ecosystem during the period in question.
Integration of Claude’s Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Story has incorporated Claude’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) into its software development kit (SDK), enabling AI agents to access on-chain data and perform actions such as intellectual property (IP) registration and licensing. MCP introduces standardized interfaces for AI-to-blockchain interactions. This integration facilitates autonomous workflows for IP creation, licensing, and analytics, compatible with large language model (LLM)-driven agent frameworks.
Deployment of Bridged USDC Standard
Bridged USDC is live on the Story Protocol, implemented via Circle’s Bridged USDC Standard and deployed through Stargate Finance. This move enhanced user security while mitigating liquidity fragmentation for USDC transactions within the ecosystem.
Recognition in Grayscale Research
Story Protocol was included in Grayscale Research’s Top 20 projects of 2025, recognized for its efforts to bring the estimated $70 trillion IP market on-chain. With copyright disputes escalating due to AI model training, Story’s infrastructure provides tools for creators to monetize the use of their IP and facilitates trading and revenue generation from tokenized intellectual property.
Collaboration with Google Cloud Web3
Story has entered a partnership with Google Cloud Web3 to promote broader adoption of programmable IP solutions. The collaboration focuses on supporting infrastructure and tooling to bring IP tokenization and smart licensing into mainstream enterprise and developer environments.
Media Industry Integration
Netflix content has been successfully onboarded to the Story platform, enabling new monetization pathways and licensing models. This marks a significant step toward integrating blockchain-based IP management within traditional media ecosystems.
Music IP as Real-World Assets
Aria Protocol has uploaded a catalog of globally recognized music to the Story blockchain. These assets are tokenized and structured as revenue-generating real-world assets (RWAs).
IP Portal: Creator-Focused Infrastructure
The IP Portal, built on the Story network, provides a streamlined interface for creators, developers, and businesses to manage intellectual property. It supports ownership registration, licensing configuration, and revenue tracking within a transparent, on-chain framework.
Creator Use Cases and Platform Integrations
Several ecosystem integrations have been launched to facilitate monetization for creators using the IP Portal.
- Ablo, which enables the creation and sale of customized merchandise.
- Aria, a platform that lets music lovers earn from their favorite hits.
- Verio, which supports the staking of IP-based artwork.
These integrations offer applied use cases across commerce, media, and creative industries.
Strategic Partnership with OKX Ventures
Story and OKX Ventures have jointly launched a $10 million fund aimed at supporting early-stage projects at the intersection of IP and artificial intelligence. The fund prioritizes the development of IP tokenization protocols, AI-based licensing tools, and decentralized cultural IP marketplaces. Selected projects will receive capital, infrastructure, and long-term ecosystem support.
The IP Token
Launched in February 2025, Story’s native token, IP, entered the market with significant momentum, debuting among the top 100 tokens by market capitalization on CoinGecko. This initial performance suggests a strong level of market interest and early alignment between the token’s utility and investor expectations. For more details, see our tokenomics and staking highlights.
At the time of writing, the token’s market capitalization is approximately $1.5 billion, which indicates a threefold increase since its Token Generation Event (TGE).
Unlike general-purpose staking tokens, IP is integrated directly into Story’s core infrastructure. It serves as the medium for creating and managing intellectual property assets on-chain, supporting licensing, reuse, and monetization through programmable terms embedded in smart contracts.
The token plays a functional role in the platform’s ecosystem: royalty payments, licensing fees, and remixing costs are all denominated in IP. This creates a built-in demand mechanism tied to actual platform usage, which may contribute to greater price resilience and reduced volatility during broader market downturns.
Following its launch, IP experienced the typical volatility associated with early price discovery. Still, by late March 2025, it began to stabilize within a range of $4 to $5, even during periods of broader market decline. In addition, a base staking yield of approximately 7% has positioned the token as a potentially attractive option for participants seeking both utility and yield.
Staking in Story
At the time of writing, approximately 464 million IP tokens are staked on the Story network, equivalent to 1.6 times the current circulating supply. This represents one of the highest staking-to-circulating supply ratios among blockchain networks
A decentralized active set of 64 validators supports staking operations. Of these, 42 support unlocked IP tokens, while 22 manage locked tokens. Locked IP tokens, which were allocated to team members and early investors, are subject to a vesting schedule and remain non-transferable until the lock period concludes. This structure is designed to mitigate the risk of sudden token liquidity events that could negatively impact market stability.
To align incentives and protect the ecosystem, staking rewards for locked tokens are issued at half the rate of those for unlocked tokens. Validators such as Everstake are among those supporting staking for locked IP.
The staking process is designed to be accessible and is compatible with over ten popular cryptocurrency wallets, including MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Keplr. Check our step-by-step staking guide for full instructions.
Future Prospects
Since the mainnet launch, Story has transitioned from an IP-focused blockchain into a broader infrastructure layer supporting digital intellectual property at scale. The platform currently hosts hundreds of thousands of IP assets on-chain and has facilitated collaborations with major brands. It has also introduced licensing tools optimized for AI integration.
In the second half of 2025, the Story team initiated what it refers to as “Chapter 2,” a strategic phase focused on transforming intellectual property into programmable and enforceable assets. A core emphasis is enabling the use of tokenized IP in AI-driven environments, including physical AI applications in fields such as robotics and healthcare. This includes support for novel asset classes such as sensor data and synthetic datasets, which can be tokenized, licensed, and used as training inputs for machine learning models.
The key planned developments include a licensing layer for AI, scaled IP tokenization, and tools for licensing user-generated content.
These initiatives are all set to establish a scalable infrastructure for the IP economy, which would accommodate AI-native use cases and usher in new mechanisms for value creation through digital assets.
Stake with Everstake | Follow us on X | Connect with us on Discord
***
Everstake is a software platform that provides infrastructure tools and resources for users but does not offer investment advice or investment opportunities, manage funds, facilitate collective investment schemes, provide financial services, or take custody of, or otherwise hold or manage, customer assets. Everstake does not conduct any independent diligence on or substantive review of any blockchain asset, digital currency, cryptocurrency, or associated funds. Everstake’s provision of technology services allowing a user to stake digital assets is not an endorsement or a recommendation of any digital assets by it. Users are fully and solely responsible for evaluating whether to stake digital assets.
