Preface—— Its so over ➡️ We are so back!
From the failed South Korean bubble to the great Disney on the chain, Story Protocol has given the market a satisfactory answer at the beginning of this long and painful 2025. After the value of its $IP has returned and been rediscovered by the market, the magic book of the Story ecosystem has just been opened.
The prologue of this epic story takes place in 2023, and a16z sees ambition in these young founders. Their territory covers DeFi, Infra, AI and other fields, and they are committed to completely changing the operating mode of creativity and ideas through transparency and programmability on the chain.
Since 2023, Story Protocol has completed three large-scale financing rounds, raising a total of US$134 million.
Seed round: Led by a16z crypto, raising $29.3 million.
Round A: Also led by a16z crypto, raising US$25 million.
Series B: Successfully completed in August 2024, raising $80 million.
Rather than revolutionizing Disney, it is better to say that the rules are broken down and recreated. As the smallest unit with validity on the Story Protocol, IP has become a cornerstone like Lego blocks on this unique Layer 1.
Chuang: What exactly is IP?
If you have just entered the Story ecosystem out of curiosity, you might as well ask yourself, what exactly is IP? How much do you understand about its story? You can refer to a previous article by founder Jason Zhao ( What is IP? ). His conception of IP breaks the traditional stereotype of ordinary people.
There are a thousand different opinions about IP. You think the NFT avatar you have used for two years is a good IP. Your second uncles child cried when watching the cartoon and thought Nezha 2 is a good IP. Other children want to apply for a patent as soon as possible after graduating from a doctorate program. This is the IP that he will rely on for his livelihood. Yes, all of the above. Jason Zhao said, my definition of IP: **Intellectual property is the atomic unit of creativity. **Successful IP is a milestone in recording human development, and the world is also competing to create the next IP and continue writing new stories.
In the past, intellectual property rights and the moats between industries were deeply rooted, until the emergence of AI broke everything. The star-sucking method of artificial intelligence has caused many creators achievements to be used as learning materials, and the concept of IP that we are familiar with has gradually disappeared. The worst thing is that creators can neither prevent the spread of information nor prevent their achievements from being digested into nutrients for silicon-based intelligent bodies. Their vitality is slowly withering due to the disappearance of rewards, because the development of AI is revolutionary, extremely fast, and unstoppable.
The creation of Story Protocol and IP is to protect the value of creators from being exploited, and is a new model for creators to embrace the future of AI. It makes full use of tokenization to disperse the value to the people who participate in IP construction, and different tokens also represent different types of rights and interests.
Life: Story Protocol Ecosystem Map
After understanding Storys mission, we need to take a birds eye view of the digital economy empire that Story wants to build from the perspective of its ecosystem. It is mainly composed of the following parts, just like the elements of wind, water, earth, and fire that build the world.
IP assets
DeFi
Infra/Tools
AI
Next I will expand on each one.
The above are the projects currently live on Story Protocol.
DeFi
Trading and communication are always the constant themes of Crypto.
Section Overview
The composability of IPs DeFi ecosystem goes far beyond the scope of traditional DeFi. Here you can even evaluate your hot IP and make mortgage loans based on the cash flow it can generate in the future. The arrival of IPFi highlights the importance of holding high-quality IP assets. Because mastering high-quality IP assets means mastering high-quality cash flow. In less than a month since the mainnet was launched, the DeFi ecosystem on the Story chain is mainly composed of native DEX, lending platform, Staking/income aggregation, and derivatives.
1. Native DEX
Core functions: As the native decentralized exchange of the Story ecosystem, PiperX focuses on the liquidity management of IP assets, intending to build a relatively complete IPFi platform. Story Hunt further supports the exchange between IP and NFT on the original basis.
Data highlights:
PiperX
According to the data on the homepage, PiperX has reached a total TVL of $6.7M and a total transaction volume of $49.7M since the launch of the IP mainnet 18 days ago.
Compared to Story Hunt, PiperX has a wider coverage of trading pairs of mainstream IP Tokens, among which WIP, ZOO, WETH, WTF, vIP and other tokens rank in the top five.
Story Hunt
According to official data, the total TVL reached $6.18M and the total transaction volume was $42.2M
2. Lending Platform
Unleash Protocol is a fork of AAVE V3. It is the first lending protocol to leverage the initial leverage of IP. The existing lending categories are relatively simple, including three assets such as WETH, USDC, and IP. Currently, Story Foundation has also launched the Unleash Protocols liquidity incentive plan, through which WIP can be obtained as part of the annualized reward through lending.
Key Stats:
As of March 3, 2025, Unleash Protocol’s total lending market is $20.01M, total lending amount is $10.14M, and total TVL is $9.88M
3. Staking/Liquidity Staking
Metapool :
Metapool focuses on staking STORY tokens. The current staking APY is 9%, the Metapool staking pool TVL is 1.3 M $IP, and the staking rate accounts for 0.6% of the token circulation.
Verio :
Verio is also a liquidity staking solution for IP. You can stake IP as vIP on Verio, which provides more flexible staking options, currently at 5.25% annualized. According to Deflama data, Verios current TVL is $12.82M.
4. Derivatives
It provides leveraged perpetual trading with USDC on the Story chain as margin, covering a wide range of trading pairs.
DeFi brings liquidity to the ecosystem. In the early stages of Story, the infrastructure for liquidity has been established. The ecosystem is still in its early stages, and there is still a lack of various stablecoins to expand the tokenization scenarios related to IP. In the future, we also expect other cross-chain bridges to bring more liquidity to the Story ecosystem. In the short term, we will also see projects such as
Shield Protocol’s IP-related insurance (providing infringement/liquidation insurance for IP collateral based on on-chain data and AI risk control)
Story Scroll (L2 expansion solution for Story L1 using zk-Rollup)
IPeg (overcollateralize with cash flow generated by IP, support automatic settlement and cross-border payment)
IP assets
If you want to take off, the most important thing is to seize the opportunity.
Section Overview
There is no time to mourn for the cooling MEME DreamWorks. What is about to arrive on the battlefield is the singing and dancing AI+IP. The IP asset track presents dual innovations in technology and ecology in the Web3 field. It organically integrates AI, NFT, on-chain DAO governance and other modules, allowing the same IP to have a complete value chain from creation, confirmation of rights, trading to the decentralization development of derivative series. In the attention-oriented blockchain economy, the speed of early ecological asset creation is directly proportional to the wealth effect. Combining the above three points, we can focus on the IP asset-related sectors: pioneers of IP germination, IP distribution platforms, and IP markets for IP transactions.
1. Native IP Project
MEME leader: The first leader project that comes into view is Whatthefreg . It expands the connotation of IP through community co-creation. The project team cleverly uses the grouping module of Story Protocol to manage the content of the derived IP $WTF. The Agent image of Freg The Vigilante is designed to mock and satirize those false memes.
Other IPs:
Globkin : Cute cartoon characters with various combinations of NFT and PFP
Konbini : As an IP platform, the comic story IP The Revenant has been released.
Mimboku : NFTIP Image
Emergence : A voting syndicated novel by acclaimed author David S. Goyer.
2. AI-driven platform
Aria : It is an IP RWA protocol based on Story. It hopes to realize the tokenization of intellectual property rights assets through blockchain technology. The first RWA issued was a king bomb, from Justin Biebers Peaches. Later, many artists such as Blackpink and others have joined the IP.
Davinci AI : It is the first IPFi + DeFAI Ai Agent program on Story. It has proactively contacted the popular Ai agent @luna_virtuals on Virtual and suggested converting Lunas music into tradable IP assets on Story.
https://x.com/whip_queen_/status/1883171508828454919
Solo AI / Loudr: Solo AI is a music creation platform on Story. Users can use AI to create music and share it with the community. Its innovative bond curve can promote AI music monetization. It also has Storys native Agent Sona. Loudr is a music IP trading platform based on Story. It promotes music collection and sharing through its token $LOUDER.
mahojin: AI mashup platform, asset issuance.Playart.ai : Focusing on IP content creation, user-generated AI works can be automatically registered as IP assets and connected to IP Market transactions.
IP World, Spotlight, Fun Overdrive: These three are IP-based PUMP platforms, which are used to enable users to carry out asset-building activities and create IPs with different meme images.
Lewis AI: AI-generated IP storyboard, converting content into IP and distributing it to the community.
3. Trading and Liquidity Market
Color / OKX IP Market : As the main trading platform of the Story Protocol ecosystem, it supports fragmented transactions of IP assets (such as tokenizing 10% of the usage rights of a certain IP).
Infra/Tools
If one wishes to build a house, one must first prepare the foundation. After the foundation is complete and level, one can then add stones and wood on top. This way the house will be solid.
Infrastructure and tool products play a vital role. They not only support the creation, management and circulation of IP assets, but also provide a safe, transparent and efficient interactive environment for creators, developers and users within the ecosystem. The data dimension of IP is more complex than ordinary Layer 1, and we also need more sensitive tools to help manage and quickly respond to the pulse of the IP ecosystem.
1. Oracle
Oracles are an important part of the Story Protocol ecosystem, ensuring the reliability of the price, royalty income, and other key data of on-chain IP assets. Currently, the ecosystem mainly supports suppliers such as Redstone and Pyth, providing data support for IP asset valuation, lending, liquidity, and other scenarios.
2. Cross-chain bridge
Story Protocols IP assets need to be highly liquid, and we may see more and more creators and investors leading their AI and IP to freely trade, authorize, and monetize their influence between different public chains. Currently, the ecosystem mainly supports cross-chain bridge solutions such as Debridge and Stargate, which enable IP assets to flow securely and trustlessly between multiple networks.
3. Other tools
In the Story Protocol ecosystem, various tool products provide creators, investors, and developers with key support such as on-chain data analysis, identity management, asset trading, and interactive portals, ensuring efficient management and secure circulation of IP assets.
On-chain data analysis and indexing
Cielo: An on-chain data analysis tool that allows users to track specific addresses or address clusters and conduct IP transaction and market trend analysis.
Goldsky: A high-performance data indexer that provides subgraph hosting and real-time data replication, enabling developers to quickly query and analyze IP asset data on Story Protocol.
Kaito: An AI-driven on-chain data platform that indexes a wide range of Web3 content. The Story Yapper Leaderboard is currently online, showcasing the influence and attention distribution in the Story ecosystem.
Identity management and account abstraction
Pimlico: ERC-4337 account abstraction infrastructure, providing smart account support for the Story ecosystem, enabling gas-free transactions, batch transactions, session keys and automation functions.
Privy: An authentication and key management platform for Web3 applications that helps developers securely onboard, manage, and protect user accounts.
Dynamic: Provides embedded wallet and authentication solutions, integrating identity authentication, smart wallets, and key management into a flexible SDK to enhance the user experience of the Story ecosystem.
AI
God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock and over all the earth and over all the creeping creatures that move on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.
Section Overview
In the Book of Genesis, God created everything in six days. Since the launch of the main network, Story has also laid out its own ecological map in a very short time. God created humans, and Story also set its sights on the creation of AI assets. In fact, AI should be a subcategory of IP assets, but here, the author has taken it out and made it a special category, because AI+blockchain is what Story Protocol intends to solve, the source of all conflicts.
1. DeFAI
There is a saying that blockchain is the currency system of AI. This statement has been expanded and demonstrated on Story. Under Storys transparent and programmable framework, AI and DeFi are combined to form an ever-rolling economic flywheel.
Mycelium Network: Story-driven intellectual property (IP) infrastructure that supports cross-chain account transfers, management, and transactions, and combines with TSS to implement decentralized applications of programmable IP.
1Combo: An open IP protocol on Story that supports decentralized AI-driven IP remix, peer-to-pool IP trading, and on-chain IP tracking, allowing users to profit from IP trading.
2. AI-IP
Luna: Who can refuse a cute intern? Not long ago, Virtuals’ popular cute girl Ai Luna and Story Protocol had a dream collaboration. This is the first time we have an AI intern to expand our influence. We have always dreamed of increasing the influence of our projects, reaching more corners of social networks, and reaching more people. But humans can’t tirelessly output their opinions and spread their influence. This novel B-side to AI-side cooperation model will not be just an exception in the future. As a native AI Agent on Base, Luna will have a bigger stage on Story in the future.
Zerebro: Solanas Zerebro, as a multi-model nested Ai agent, has realized the identity of a validator on the Story Protocol. Because the Story Protocol is a petri dish for AI growth, Zerobros identity as a validator ensures that the growing AI can gradually be transformed into programmable on-chain assets. This has an additional practical meaning compared to Zerebros usual crazy talk and singing, dancing, rap and basketball.
https://x.com/StoryProtocol/status/1887531573580361781
3. Others
Sekai: A social story creation platform in the Story ecosystem where users can create, read and adapt stories using AI, providing high interactivity and composability.
PlayArts (@playartsdotai): A decentralized creator economy and game interaction platform that uses Storys TCP/IP framework to enable AI agents to trade IP autonomously and provide creation and trading capabilities.
Morphic (@morphic): A platform that empowers creators, filmmakers, and animators to produce high-quality films and animations using AI and manage IP through Story.
Bythen (@bythenAI): A 3D virtual character creation platform in the Story ecosystem that provides creators with IP images and launches NFT products Bythen Card and Bythen Chip for monetization.
Perhaps most importantly, this new form of AI-IP is the crossroads where AI and blockchain intersect: truly autonomous AI agents require blockchain as a foundation for interacting with value. On Story, Ai agents will be able to learn all IP on Story through training, and IP holders will be incentivized by storing IP on Story, allowing them to profit from the massive gold rush surrounding the AI arms race. Here, code becomes law and ideas become property in a software-native, AI-driven future.
The story seems to be coming to an end here. I believe you have a preliminary understanding of the Story ecosystem, but you are still curious and want to ask: Editor, editor, where is the fifth element of the Story ecosystem? Is there anything else?
Some brothers, yes.
The future: the fifth element of the ecological landscape?
In the movie, Leeloo of the Fifth Element was created as a container. She has a human appearance, a human body, and even her wisdom gradually grows into a human. The same is true for IP. As a container, what it carries is organic, full of vitality, and communicative.
The fifth element of IPFi: Reshaping the IP value system
On Story Protocol, IP is not only a carrier of culture, entertainment and content creation, it can also be financialized, liquidated, and has a more multi-dimensional way of realizing value. The emergence of IPFi has made IP assets truly a new type of financial production factor, allowing creativity to no longer be limited to traditional copyright income, but to play a role in a broader financial ecosystem.
For example, AI data training sets, as a form of intellectual property, have extremely high reuse value. If a high-quality dataset can be used as a parent IP for training different AI models, then it should receive a reasonable return. However, in the real world, a large number of datasets are used to train AI without authorization, and the rights of data contributors are often ignored. Through IPFi, datasets can be authenticated and flexible profit distribution rules can be set based on Story Protocol, so that they can continue to create value in the AI ecosystem rather than being used for free.
https://x.com/StoryProtocol/status/1888754759999631463
In addition to data assets, the financialization of high-quality IP can further release cash flow value. IP should not just exist statically, but be a financial instrument that can generate continuous cash flow. Under the framework of IPFi, the future income of IP can be broken down into different financial rights. For example, creators can use the expected cash flow of IP as collateral to obtain small loans and alleviate short-term funding pressure. This mechanism makes it easier for high-quality IP to obtain capital support, and also enables creators to focus on the value growth of the IP itself, using the value lever to leverage more resources, thereby forming a sustainable creative ecosystem.
If the independent growth of high-quality IPs can create legends, then open collaboration between IPs can breed the prosperity of the entire industry. The control of the traditional IP market is concentrated in the hands of a few companies, and the emergence of IPFi has made the production, management and monetization of IPs more decentralized, empowering a wider group of creators. IPs can not only freely set cooperation models with other IPs, but also make early investment in IPs possible by limiting cooperation seats. For example, an investor can take 50% of the 100 limited cooperation seats of a potential IP project in the early stage. As the IP grows and develops, the value of these cooperation seats will increase accordingly. When the IP is flourishing, investors can sell the cooperation rights one after another to obtain long-term returns. This is not only an investment in potential IP, but also an early support for young artists, scientists and creators, allowing them to focus on innovation with more sufficient resources, and investors can also enjoy corresponding returns after the IP is recognized by the market.
The essence of IPFi is to break the inherent pattern of the traditional IP market, so that the value release of IP is no longer limited to a single channel, but can achieve more efficient flow and value-added through financial instruments. Story Protocol provides a decentralized IP infrastructure, making IP rights confirmation, revenue distribution and circulation mechanisms more transparent and fair. Whether it is the confirmation of data assets, the financialization of IP, or the decentralized collaboration model, IPFi is bringing a new development model to the IP industry. In the future, IP will not only be a symbol of creativity, but also an asset class that can be flexibly configured and invested, allowing creators, investors and users to benefit together.
DeFAIs Fifth Element
In the long run, we expect DeFi and IP assets to be more deeply integrated and to achieve more intelligent, efficient and automated operations under AI-driven financial protocols.
In the era of information explosion, human beings are limited in their ability to process information. Faced with massive amounts of market data, complex financial logic, and ever-changing trading opportunities, individual decision-making efficiency is often difficult to match the computing power of AI. AI can quickly find key entry points from a huge amount of information flow and immediately perform operations, so that financial interactions no longer rely on direct human intervention, but are driven by rules and AI. With continuous learning and optimization, AI can not only match human trading needs, but also actively adapt to changes in the market environment, evolve into a financial assistant that meets human expectations, and even become a co-participant in decision-making, helping us make the best decision. We have gradually seen that AI agents such as AIXBT, Alva, Sosovalue, Buzz, etc. have begun to develop in the direction of information flow integration and analysis. It is estimated that in the future, they will become the first reporter and the first commander in our trenches.
The DeFi ecosystem consists of multiple core links, from asset custody, transaction matching, verification and liquidation to risk management. Each link needs to operate accurately and accurately to ensure the security and liquidity of the entire system. AI agents can not only assume these roles, but also realize all-weather automated operation with an omniscient attitude. Whether it is monitoring market dynamics, executing arbitrage strategies, or managing capital flows and optimizing liquidity allocation, AI can complete it autonomously and constantly adjust strategies to adapt to changing market conditions with the best solution.
When AI and DeFi strategies are deeply integrated, the entire financial system will enter a new stage. The reason why DeFAI > DeFi + AI is because AI can achieve strategy optimization and self-evolution. In the infinite data, they will continue to polish the strategy itself. Whether it is statistical probability or on-the-spot reaction to black swan events, they will be more rational than you who are hesitant, panicky, or even themselves who once performed poorly.
The Fifth Element of AI to AI
Story Protocol proposed a paper on AI and AI transaction framework in December last year, exploring how intelligent agents can establish interactions and economic relationships on the chain. At this stage, we are still focusing on active users and transaction behaviors on the chain, but if we only measure this ecosystem in terms of people, it would be too monotonous. In the future, an individual may have multiple AI agents with different divisions of labor, and when this scale expands from one to one hundred or even thousands, the network effect will grow exponentially. This means that the development direction of AI will not stop at simple human-computer interaction, but will gradually evolve towards the on-chain intelligent agent ecosystem, become an independently operated economic individual, and collaborate efficiently in a decentralized network.
https://x.com/StoryProtocol/status/1868696340156538959
When AI is no longer just a tool for executing instructions, but an intelligent entity that can make independent decisions and trade freely, a new economic system will gradually emerge. Communication between AI and AI is not just the exchange of data, but also means that they can establish complex economic relationships, use resources with each other, and create value together. In this system, AI can cooperate with other AIs with extremely high efficiency based on the built-in protocols and cooperation methods of IP, sign smart contracts with other AIs, automatically distribute benefits, and even quickly resolve disputes through on-chain governance mechanisms when conflicts of interest arise. This highly autonomous cooperation model enables AI agents to adapt to market demands autonomously and form a more dynamic and flexible economic network.
Story Protocol is like the world inside a crystal ball, and AI is our multiple reflection in this world. Each AI can be an independent economic entity, constantly participating in transactions, optimizing decisions, and continuously evolving in a decentralized environment. The future on-chain world will not only be a playground for human users, but also an ecosystem where AI agents can truly thrive, a decentralized intelligent economic network that does not rely on human intervention and can grow and expand on its own.
Conclusion - Finding the Fifth Element of Story Protocol Ecosystem
At the intersection of IP assets, DeFi, Infra/Tools, and AI, Story Protocol has already built the soil for the emergence of the on-chain IP economy. However, what really makes all this endless and evolving is the fifth element that cannot be defined by code, rules, or the market alone.
That is everyone like you who is creating new IP, contributing imagination, and exploring the Story ecosystem.
Just like the ultimate secret in The Fifth Element, the power of the four elements needs life to ignite, and the future of Story Protocol also needs real creators and ecological participants to give it soul. From the initial NFT, to the IP co-created by AI, to the liquidity experiment of on-chain finance, this story is still being written, and every creator, developer and explorer is a co-author of this IP epic.
The fifth element has already appeared, and its final form will be shaped by all participants in the ecosystem.
Reference
Jason Zhao. “What is IP?” Substack.
https://jasonzhao.substack.com/p/what-is-ip?triedRedirect=true
Story Protocol on X. IPFi related discussion
Story Protocol on X. About the collaboration with AI Agent Luna
Story Protocol on X. News about Zerebro
Story Protocol on X. Discussion on AI to AI Trading Framework
