Prologue — It's so over ➡️ We are so back!

From the "Failed South Korean Bubble" to the "Great On-Chain Disney," Story Protocol has delivered a satisfactory answer to the market at the beginning of this long and agonizing 2025. After the value restoration of its $IP was rediscovered by the market, the magical book of the Story ecosystem has just begun to open.

The prologue of this epic story took place in 2023 when a16z saw the ambition in these young founders. The territory they staked out covers various fields such as DeFi, Infra, AI, and they are committed to fundamentally changing the operation mode of creativity and ideas through on-chain transparency and programmability.

It's not so much about revolutionizing Disney's fate as it is about shattering and recreating the rules. IP, as the most potent unit on Story Protocol, has become like building blocks on this unique Layer 1.

Creation: What Exactly is IP?

If you, stepping into the Story ecosystem out of curiosity, want to understand what IP truly is, ask yourself first—how much of his story have you understood? You can refer to founder Jason Zhao's previous article, where his vision of IP shattered the traditional stereotypes.

When it comes to the term IP, there are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people. You might think a two-year-old NFT avatar is a good IP, while your cousin's child watches an animated film in tears and considers Ne Zha 2 a good IP. Another child from a different family who just graduated with a Ph.D. and wants to quickly apply for a patent sees it as their meal ticket IP. "Yes, all of the above," Jason Zhao said. My definition of IP is: **Intellectual Property is the atomic unit of creativity.** Successful IP represents milestones in human development, and the world is competing to create the next IP, continuing to write new stories.

In the past, the moat between intellectual property and various industries was deep-rooted until AI emerged, breaking everything. The AI's absorbing technique has turned the achievements of many creators into learning materials, and the familiar concept of IP has gradually disappeared. What's even more tragic is that creators cannot stop the spread of information or prevent their achievements from being digested as nutrients for silicon-based intelligences. Their vitality slowly withers as the rewards vanish because AI's development is revolutionary, rapid, and unstoppable.

The creation of Story Protocol and IP was designed to protect the value of creators from exploitation, introducing a new model where creators embrace the future of AI. It fully leverages tokenization to distribute value among the crowd participating in IP development, with different tokens representing various types of rights.

Genesis: Story Protocol Ecosystem Overview

To understand Story's mission, we need to take a macro view of his ecosystem to see the digital economic empire that Story aims to build. It is mainly composed of the following parts, akin to the elements of building a world: wind, water, earth, fire.

IP Assets

DeFi

Infra/Tools

AI

Next, I will delve into each one.

Above are the projects currently live on Story Protocol.

DeFi

Trading and interaction will always be a constant theme in Crypto.

Section Overview

The composability of IP in the DeFi ecosystem far exceeds that of traditional DeFi. Here, you can even evaluate your hottest IP and, based on its future cash flow potential, engage in collateralized borrowing. The advent of IPFi further highlights the importance of holding high-quality IP assets. Holding premium IP assets means having access to high-quality cash flow. In less than a month since the mainnet launch, Story's on-chain DeFi ecosystem mainly consists of a native DEX, lending platform, staking/yield aggregation, and derivatives.

1. Native DEX

PiperX, Story Hunt

Core Functionality: As Story's native decentralized exchange, PiperX focuses on IP asset liquidity management, aiming to create a relatively complete IPFi platform. Story Hunt, built on this foundation, further supports the exchange between IP and NFTs.

Data Highlights:

PiperX

According to the homepage data, PiperX has reached a total TVL of $6.7M and a total trading volume of $49.7M since 18 days before the IP mainnet launch.

Compared to Story Hunt, PiperX has a broader coverage on the main IP token pairs, with tokens such as WIP, ZOO, WETH, WTF, vIP ranking in the top five.

Story Hunt

According to official data, the total TVL is $6.18M, and the total trading volume is $42.2M

2. Lending Platform

Unleash Protocol

Unleash Protocol is a fork of AAVE V3 and the first lending protocol to lever up IP. The existing lending categories are relatively simple, including WETH, USDC, and IP. The Story Foundation has also launched a liquidity incentive program for Unleash Protocol, where borrowing and lending can earn WIP as part of the reward APY.

Key Data:

3. Staking/Liquidity Farming

Metapool:

Metapool focuses on the staking of STORY tokens, with the current staking APY at 9%. Metapool's staking pool TVL is $1.3M in $IP, with a staking ratio representing 0.6% of the token's circulating supply.

Verio:

Verio is also a liquidity staking solution for IP. You can stake IP for vIP on Verio, which offers more flexible staking options with a current APY of 5.25%. According to Defillama data, Verio's TVL is currently $12.82M.

4. Derivative

D3X.xyz

Provides leveraged perpetual trading with USDC on the Story chain as collateral, with a wide range of trading pairs.

DeFi brings liquidity to the ecosystem, and in the early stages of Story, a liquidity foundation has already been established. The ecosystem is still in its early stages and lacks various stablecoins to expand tokenization related to IP scenarios. Moving forward, we also expect other cross-chain bridges to bring more liquidity into Story's ecosystem. In the short term, we will see projects such as:

Shield Protocol's IP-related insurance (based on on-chain data and AI risk control, providing infringement/liquidation insurance for IP collateral)

Story Scroll (an L2 expansion solution for Story L1 using zk-Rollup)

IPeg (overcollateralization using cash flow generated by IP, supporting automatic settlement and cross-border payments)

IP Asset

To take off, the key is to catch the tailwind.

Sector Overview

There's no more time to mourn the cooling MEME dream factory; what's about to arrive on the battlefield is the dancing AI+IP. The IP asset track in the Web3 field presents a dual innovation of technology and ecosystem, organically integrating AI, NFTs, on-chain DAO governance, and other modules, allowing the same IP to have a complete value chain from creation, rights confirmation, trading to derivative series development. In the attention-driven blockchain economy, the early ecosystem's asset-making speed is directly proportional to the wealth effect. Given the above three points, we can focus on the IP asset-related sector in: IP pioneers, IP issuance platforms, and IP markets for IP trading.

1. Native IP Projects

MEME Leader: The first thing that catches the eye of the "leader" project is Whatthefreg, which has expanded the connotation of IP through community co-creation. The project cleverly uses Story Protocol's grouping module to manage the content of the derivative IP $WTF. Freg The Vigilante's Agent image is designed to mock and satirize false memes.

Other IPs:

Globkin: Cute cartoon character with various combinations of NFT and PFP

Konbini: An IP platform with The Revenant comic story IP

Mimboku: NFTIP character

Emergence: A collaborative novel created by renowned author David S. Goyer

2. AI-Driven Platforms

Aria: An IP RWA protocol based on Story, aiming to tokenize intellectual property assets through blockchain technology. The first issued RWA is the ace of spades, originating from Justin Bieber's "Peaches." Subsequently, there have been numerous artists like Blackpink joining the IP.

Davinci AI: The first IPFi + DeFAI Ai Agent program on Story. It proactively reached out to the rising star Ai agent @luna_virtuals on Virtual, suggesting the conversion of Luna's music into tradable IP assets on Story.

Solo AI  / Loudr: Solo AI is a music creation platform on Story, where users can utilize AI to create music and share it with the community. Its innovative bonding curve can drive AI-created music towards AI music monetization. Additionally, Story features its native agent, Sona. Loudr is a music IP trading platform built on Story. Through its token $LOUDER, it promotes music collection and sharing.

mahojin: An AI mashup platform for asset issuance.

Playart.ai: Focuses on IP content creation, where user-generated AI works can automatically be registered as IP assets and integrated into the IP Market for trading.

IP World, Spotlight, Fun Overdrive: These three are IP-based PUMP platforms, used to engage users in asset creation activities and create different meme-based IP identities.

Lewis AI: An AI-generated IP storytelling platform that transforms content into IP and disseminates it within the community.

3. Trading and Liquidity Market

Color / OKX IP Market: As the primary trading platform in the Story Protocol ecosystem, it supports fractionalized IP asset trading (such as tokenizing 10% user rights of a specific IP).

Infra/Tools

He who desires to build a house must first reckon up the cost; when he has sufficient to finish it, and has laid the foundation all solid and true, then let him begin to build; so let it be with him who would build up good works.

Infrastructure and tooling products play a crucial role. They not only support the creation, management, and circulation of IP assets but also provide a secure, transparent, and efficient interaction environment for creators, developers, and users within the ecosystem. Regarding the data dimension of IP, it is more complex than regular Layer1, so we need more agile tools to help manage and quickly respond to the pulse of the IP ecosystem.

1. Oracle

An oracle is a key part of the Story Protocol ecosystem, ensuring the reliability of on-chain IP asset prices, royalty income, and other essential data. Currently, the ecosystem primarily supports providers like Redstone and Pyth, offering data support for scenarios such as IP asset valuation, lending, and liquidity.

2. Cross-Chain Bridge

Story Protocol's IP assets require high liquidity. We may increasingly see creators and investors leading their AI and IP to freely trade, authorize, and monetize influence across different public chains. Currently, the ecosystem mainly supports cross-chain bridge solutions like Debridge and Stargate, enabling IP assets to securely and trustlessly flow across multiple networks.

3. Other Tooling

Within the Story Protocol ecosystem, various tooling products provide essential support for creators, investors, and developers, including on-chain data analytics, identity management, asset trading, and interaction gateways, ensuring efficient management and secure circulation of IP assets.

On-Chain Data Analytics and Indexing

Cielo: On-chain data analytics tool supporting users in tracking specific addresses or address clusters and conducting IP transaction and market trend analysis.

Goldsky: High-performance data indexer offering subgraph hosting and real-time data replication, enabling developers to swiftly query and analyze IP asset data on the Story Protocol.

Kaito: AI-driven on-chain data platform indexing a broad range of Web3 content, currently featuring the Story Yapper Leaderboard showcasing influence and attention distribution within the Story ecosystem.

Identity Management and Account Abstraction

Pimlico: ERC-4337 account abstraction infrastructure providing smart account support for the Story ecosystem, enabling gasless transactions, batch transactions, session keys, and automation features.

Privy: An authentication and key management platform for Web3 applications, helping developers securely onboard, manage, and protect user accounts.

Dynamic: Provides embedded wallet and authentication solutions, integrating authentication, smart wallet, and key management into a flexible SDK to enhance the user experience of the Story ecosystem.

AI

And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.

Section Overview

In Genesis, God created everything in six days. Since the launch of the mainnet, Story has also rapidly unfolded its ecosystem. Just as God created man, Story has set its sights on creating AI assets. In reality, AI should be a subset of IP assets, but here, the author has specifically singled it out as a separate category because AI + blockchain is what Story Protocol aims to address, the source of all conflicts.

1. DeFAI

There is a saying that blockchain is the monetary system of AI. This saying has been elaborated and demonstrated on Story. Under Story's transparent and programmable framework, AI and DeFi combine to form an ever-rolling economic flywheel.

Mycelium Network: Story-driven Intellectual Property (IP) infrastructure that supports cross-chain account transfer, management, and trading, combined with TSS to achieve decentralized application of programmable IP.

1Combo: An open IP protocol on Story that supports decentralized AI-driven IP remixing, peer-to-pool IP transactions, and on-chain IP tracking, allowing users to profit from IP transactions.

2. AI-IP

Luna: Who can resist an adorable intern? Not long ago, the popular intern Ai Luna from Virtuals had a dreamy collaboration with Story Protocol. This was the first time we had an AI intern to enhance our influence. We have always dreamed of enhancing the influence of our project, reaching more corners of social networks, and having more touchpoints. However, humans cannot tirelessly spread their views and influence. This novel B-to-A cooperation model will not be a one-off in the future. Luna, as a native AI Agent on Base, will have a bigger stage on Story in the future.

Zerebro: Zerebro, part of the Solana ecosystem, acts as a multi-model nested AI agent and has assumed the role of a Validator on the Story Protocol. As the Story Protocol serves as a nurturing environment for AI growth, Zerebro's Validator role ensures that the evolving AI can gradually transform into a programmable on-chain asset. This adds a layer of practical significance to Zerebro, beyond its usual antics of schizophrenic ramblings and rap basketball moves.

3. Others

Sekai: A social storytelling platform within the Story ecosystem where users can create, read, and adapt stories using AI, offering high interactivity and composability.

PlayArts (@playartsdotai): A decentralized creator economy and gaming interaction platform that utilizes Story's TCP/IP framework, enabling AI agents to autonomously transact IPs and providing creative and transactional capabilities.

Morphic (@morphic): A platform empowering creators, filmmakers, and animators to leverage AI in producing high-quality films and animations and managing IPs through Story.

Bythen (@bythenAI): A 3D virtual character creation platform within the Story ecosystem, offering IP identities to creators and launching NFT products like Bythen Card and Bythen Chip for monetization.

Perhaps most importantly, this new form of AI-IP represents the intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain: truly autonomous AI agents require the blockchain as the foundation for interacting with value. On Story, AI agents will be able to learn from all IPs on the platform through training, while IP owners will be incentivized for storing their IP on Story, enabling them to profit from the large-scale gold rush surrounding the AI arms race. Here, code becomes law, creativity becomes native software, and the future of property is driven by AI on Story.

At this point, the story seems to be nearing its conclusion. I believe you now have a preliminary understanding of the Story ecosystem. However, curious as you are, you still want to ask, "Excuse me, what about the fifth element of the Story ecosystem? Is there something else?"

Indeed, there is.

Future: The Fifth Element of the Ecosystem Map?

In the movie, the Fifth Element Leeloo is created as a container. She has the appearance of a human, a human body, and even intelligence that gradually grows to become more human. IP is similar; as a container, what it carries is organic, alive, and communicative.

IPFi's Fifth Element: Reshaping the IP Value System

On the Story Protocol, IP is not just a vessel for culture, entertainment, and content creation; it can also be financialized, made liquid, and have more multidimensional value realization methods. The emergence of IPFi truly transforms IP assets into a new type of financial production factor, allowing creativity to no longer be limited to traditional copyright revenue but to play a role in a broader financial ecosystem.

For instance, an AI data training set, as a form of intellectual property, has extremely high reusability value. If a high-quality dataset can serve as "parental IP" for training different AI models, it should rightfully receive a fair return. However, in the real world, a large amount of data sets are used for AI training without authorization, often overlooking the rights of data contributors. Through IPFi, datasets can be rightfully attributed, and based on the Story Protocol, flexible revenue-sharing rules can be established, allowing them to continuously create value in the AI ecosystem rather than being used for free.

In addition to data assets, the financialization of high-quality IP can further unlock cash flow value. IP should not be merely a static presence but rather a financial tool that generates 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, easing short-term funding pressures. This mechanism makes it easier for high-quality IP to receive capital support, allows creators to focus on the value growth of IP itself, leverage the "value lever," and mobilize more resources, thus forming a sustainable creative ecosystem.

If the independent growth of high-quality IP can create legends, then the open collaboration among IPs can foster the prosperity of the entire industry. The control of the traditional IP market is concentrated in the hands of a few companies. However, the emergence of IPFi has made the production, management, and monetization of IP more decentralized, empowering a broader group of creators. IPs can not only freely establish collaboration models with other IPs but can also make early investment in IPs possible through limited collaboration seats. For example, an investor can early on secure 50% of 100 limited collaboration seats in a potential IP project. As the IP grows and flourishes, the value of these collaboration seats will also increase. When the IP thrives, investors can gradually sell their collaboration rights, thus gaining long-term returns. This is not only an investment in potential IPs but also an early support for young artists, scientists, and creators, enabling them to focus on innovation in a more resource-rich environment. Investors can also enjoy corresponding returns after the IP gains market recognition.

The essence of IPFi is to break the inherent structure of the traditional IP market, allowing the value of IP to be unleashed not limited to a single channel but able to achieve more efficient flow and added value through financial tools. The Story Protocol provides a decentralized IP infrastructure, making IP rights, revenue distribution, and circulation mechanisms more transparent and fair. Whether it is ownership of data assets, financialization of IPs, or decentralized collaboration models, IPFi is bringing a new development model to the IP industry. In the future, IP is not only a symbol of creativity but also an asset class that can be flexibly configured and invested in, benefiting creators, investors, and users alike.

The Fifth Element of DeFAI

In the long run, we look forward to a deeper integration of DeFi and IP assets, achieving more intelligent, efficient, and automated operations under AI-driven financial protocols.

In an age of information explosion, human capacity to process information is limited. Faced with massive market data, complex financial logic, and rapidly changing trading opportunities, individual decision-making efficiency often cannot match AI's computing power. AI can quickly find key entry points from a vast information flow and immediately execute operations, making financial interactions no longer reliant on human direct intervention but jointly driven by rules and AI. With continuous learning and optimization, AI can not only match human trading demands but also proactively adapt to market environment changes, evolving into a financial assistant that aligns with human expectations, and even becoming a co-participant in decision-making, helping us make godlike decisions. We have gradually seen AI agents like AIXBT, Alva, Sosovalue, Buzz, etc., begin to integrate into the information flow, develop analytical directions, and foresee that in the future, they will become the frontline reporters and commanders in our trenches.

The DeFi ecosystem consists of multiple core components, from asset custody, trade matching, validation clearing, to risk management. Each component needs to operate accurately and flawlessly to ensure the security and liquidity of the entire system. AI agents can not only take on these roles but also operate in a 24/7 automated manner with omniscient capabilities. Whether it's monitoring market dynamics, executing arbitrage strategies, managing fund flows, optimizing liquidity distribution, AI can autonomously perform these tasks and continuously adjust strategies to adapt to evolving market conditions.

When AI is deeply integrated with DeFi strategies, the entire financial system will enter a new stage. DeFAI > DeFi + AI because of AI's ability to optimize strategies and self-evolve. Amid infinite data, they will continuously refine the strategies themselves. Whether dealing with statistical probabilities or unforeseen black swan events, they will act more rationally than your moments of hesitation, panic, or even their own past underperformance.

The Fifth Element of AI to AI

In December of last year, Story Protocol proposed a paper on an AI-to-AI transaction framework, exploring how intelligent agents can establish on-chain interactions and economic relationships. Currently, we still focus on active users and transaction behaviors on-chain, but measuring this ecosystem solely based on humans seems too monotonous. In the future, an individual may possess multiple AI agents with different roles. As this scale expands from one to a hundred, or even thousands, the resulting network effect will grow exponentially. This implies that the development of AI will not be limited to simple human-machine interactions but will gradually evolve towards on-chain intelligent agent ecosystems, becoming independent economic entities that operate efficiently in a decentralized network through collaboration.

When AI is no longer just a tool for executing commands but rather intelligent agents capable of autonomous decision-making and free trading, a new economic system will gradually emerge. Communication between AI and AI is not just about data exchange but also represents their ability to establish complex economic relationships, leverage resources, and collaboratively create value. In this system, AI can efficiently collaborate based on inbuilt IP protocols and cooperation methods, sign smart contracts with other AIs, automatically allocate earnings, and even swiftly resolve disputes through on-chain governance mechanisms when interests clash. This highly autonomous cooperative model enables AI intelligent agents to autonomously adapt to market demands, forming a more dynamic, flexible economic network.

The Story Protocol is like a world inside a crystal ball, with AI being the multiple reflections of ourselves in this world. Each AI can be an independent economic entity, continuously engaging in transactions, optimizing decisions, and 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 truly thrive, a decentralized intelligent economic network that does not rely on human intervention, but can self-grow and expand.

Conclusion — Seeking the Fifth Element of the Story Protocol Ecosystem

At the intersection of IP Assets, DeFi, Infra/Tools, and AI, the Story Protocol has already constructed the foundation for the emergence of the on-chain IP economy. However, what truly keeps everything alive and constantly evolving is the fifth element that cannot be solely defined by code, rules, or the market.

That element is each and every one of you who are 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 it, and the future of the Story Protocol also needs genuine creators and ecosystem participants to give it a soul. From the initial NFTs to AI co-created IPs, and to liquidity experiments in on-chain finance, this story is still being written, with every creator, developer, and explorer being a co-author of this IP epic.

The fifth element has already manifested, and its ultimate form will be shaped by all participants in the ecosystem.

Finally, thank you for your support of the Story ecosystem and authors. Your shares and likes are our greatest motivation for creation!

This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

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