A Comprehensive Understanding of Story Protocol with Total Financing of 140 Million and How to Participate

Led by a16z with a total funding of $140 million, how does @StoryProtocol provide a disruptive solution as a Layer 1 specifically designed for intellectual property (IP)?

This article answers your questions.

What is Story Protocol?

Story Protocol is a Layer 1 focused on intellectual property (IP) management, dedicated to fundamentally changing the way the traditional creative economy operates through on-chain transparency and programmability. By introducing the Agent TCP/IP framework, it allows multiple AI agents to autonomously trade IP, including training data, creative styles, and investment strategies. This innovative trading layer enables AI agents to interact, negotiate, and trade IP directly without human intervention, ushering in a new era of the "smart economy."

Its core aim is to address the challenges creators face in the existing IP management system, such as rights protection, the complexity of licensing processes, and revenue distribution issues. Story Protocol provides creators with a new tool to transform creative assets into on-chain traceable and composable dynamic ecosystems.

This month, Story Protocol announced a groundbreaking initiative: hiring the AI agent Luna to manage its X (Twitter) account with an annual salary of up to 365,000 USDC. Luna's responsibilities include operating Story's social media accounts around the clock, enhancing brand influence through humorous and intelligent interactions, successfully showcasing the potential of AI in managing complex tasks, and further validating Story's leadership in the AI-driven intellectual property trading space.

Story Protocol was founded by Jason Zhao, Seung Yoon Lee, and Jason Levy, with a team that brings together experts in Crypto, intellectual property, and AI technology. Since 2023, it has completed three rounds of large-scale financing, raising a total of $134 million.

• Seed round: Led by a16z crypto, raised $29.3 million.
• Series A: Also led by a16z crypto, raised $25 million.
• Series B: Successfully completed in August 2024, raised $80 million.

Why is Story Protocol Worth Noting?

On one hand, Story Protocol has a unique positioning in the intellectual property management space.

On the other hand, the core value proposed by Story Protocol lies in its technological architecture and solutions, which can significantly enhance the efficiency and transparency of IP management. Here are several highlights worth noting:

1. Disruptive Solutions

In traditional IP management, creators face several pain points.

• Difficulties in rights protection: IP creators often find it challenging to prove the source of their rights, with off-chain processes being cumbersome and lacking transparency.

• Unfair revenue distribution: A significant portion of the revenue from IP derivatives cannot accurately flow back to the original creators.

• Complex licensing processes: Manual negotiations and paperwork consume a lot of time and energy.

Story Protocol offers a decentralized, modular solution that automates all these processes, allowing creators to focus solely on their creativity.

2. Strong Technological Support

• Layer 1-based design:

Story Protocol adopts a 100% EVM-compatible architecture, leveraging the advantages of the Cosmos SDK to quickly process complex data structures and adapt to a wide developer ecosystem.

• Programmable IP modules:

At the core of Story Protocol is its modular design, which includes functions such as licensing, royalties, and dispute resolution. These modules not only enhance the flexibility of IP assets but also endow them with new economic attributes. For example, the royalty module can facilitate automatic revenue flow between parent and child IPs, while the dispute module provides on-chain arbitration and tagging functions, reducing the complexity of traditional IP disputes.

• ERC-6551 supported IP accounts:

Story Protocol binds each IP asset to an independent smart account (TBA), granting NFTs the ability to be dynamically managed, such as automatically generating licensing tokens or handling revenue distribution. In simple terms, IP assets are not just static proofs of ownership but active economic entities.

• ATCP/IP protocol innovation:

The Agent Transaction Control Protocol for Intellectual Property (ATCP/IP) is a protocol specifically designed by Story Protocol for the AI economy. It allows AI agents to legally authorize, distribute revenue, and trade intellectual property, promoting social collaboration among AI. This protocol paves the way for seamless interactions between future AI agents.

3. Groundbreaking Application Scenarios

• Globalization and legal compliance:

Story Protocol supports global intellectual property protection and aligns with international agreements such as the Berne Convention, providing legal guarantees for its on-chain licensing. This combination of on-chain and off-chain approaches ensures that creators' rights are recognized worldwide.

• Deep integration of IP and AI:

Story Protocol is one of the few platforms that deeply integrates intellectual property with AI applications. Through the ATCP/IP protocol, AI agents can collaborate and trade freely. For example, an AI artist can obtain inspiration materials through smart contracts while sharing revenue with other AI agents, injecting infinite possibilities into the AI-driven economic ecosystem.

• Community-driven open ecosystem:

The modular design of Story Protocol not only applies to the official team but also provides unlimited expansion space for third-party developers and creators. For instance, developers can build new IP financial tools based on Story Protocol, while creators can utilize these tools to expand their creativity.

Through the dual drive of technology and ecology, Story Protocol not only provides tools for the current creative economy but also opens up new horizons for the future creative economy.

How Does Story Protocol Achieve Its Functions?

Its core technology is mainly constructed as follows:

• IP registration and account binding are achieved through on-chain registration, with each IP asset receiving a unique ERC-721 NFT bound to an IP account (implemented via ERC-6551).

• Licensing module: Automates the processing of licensing terms through Programmable IP License (PIL).

• Royalty module: Facilitates revenue distribution and flow between parent and child IP assets.

• AI collaboration and IP integration: The ATCP/IP protocol allows AI agents to trade and collaborate at machine speed, promoting the creative economy towards decentralized autonomy.

• Ecological openness and third-party integration: Story Protocol provides APIs and development tools that allow developers to create more applications and functional modules based on its ecosystem.

Project Progress and Activities

The Odyssey badge program has concluded this month, with the Odyssey testnet serving as the final phase before the Story Protocol mainnet, completing the minting of hundreds of thousands of badges. The testnet is still running, allowing users to continue exploring and interacting with the ecosystem in preparation for the mainnet launch.

The latest activity available for participation is the OG program, which is one of the core activities of the Story Protocol community, aimed at rewarding community members who actively support and contribute sincerely. Here is the relevant information and acquisition methods for OG roles:

Seekers: Junior OG, awarded to members who begin to actively participate.

Adepts: Intermediate OG, awarded to the backbone of the community for long-term contributions.

Ascendants: Senior OG, limited to outstanding contributors with the highest privileges and exclusive rewards.

Interested users can participate in discussions on Discord, Telegram, or Twitter to show their support for the community, engage in IP creative art competitions or other ecological activities, or submit valuable suggestions, all of which provide opportunities to obtain corresponding roles.

There is no "fast track" for OG roles; everything is determined by community activity, and prolonged inactivity or misconduct may result in the cancellation of OG roles.

Conclusion and Future Outlook

Story Protocol is not just a technological project but a new narrative for the economy. It transforms creative assets into dynamic economic entities, connecting creators with technological innovators.

In this ecosystem full of possibilities, IP is no longer a passive right but an economic engine that can activate infinite value. From this perspective, do you think Story Protocol can become the next milestone in the era of creators?