AI Era Gives Birth to a New Asset Class
Intellectual property (IP) is the foundation of artificial intelligence (AI). As AI transforms industries at an unprecedented pace, IP is becoming the most important asset class of the 21st century.
IP, as an asset class worth up to $61 trillion, encompasses training data, scientific achievements, brands, and creative content.
However, AI is disrupting the IP system we know. The traditional IP mechanism cannot keep up with the speed and scale of generative AI. Centralized intermediaries make the process of IP transaction, licensing, and monetization opaque, costly, and inefficient. IP owners find their works used to train AI models without attribution or compensation, while AI companies cannot sign licensing agreements with a myriad of individuals.
Story proposes a new intellectual property framework, aiming to build an open and programmable market for IP. Story is a peer-to-peer IP network that transforms IP into a programmable asset class, enabling IP asset transactions, rights confirmation, and monetization on AI and the broader web without licensing.
$IP will be the core of the Story ecosystem.
What is $IP?
$IP is the native token of the Story Layer 1 blockchain, serving multiple critical functions in the Story network.
Core Utilities of $IP
Staking $IP to Secure the Network — Validators maintain the security and integrity of the blockchain through the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism by staking $IP.
Using $IP as Gas Fee for Transactions on Story — All transactions on Story require $IP as the gas fee to ensure the continuous operation of the network.
Governing the $IP Ecosystem — Token holders drive the development of the on-chain IP market through governance decisions.
$IP Token Allocation
58.4% of $IP will be used for the ecosystem, community, foundation, and initial incentives.
Initial Token Allocation
38.4% Ecosystem + Community
The ecosystem and community portion is established to promote ecosystem growth and community development, aiming to provide support for Story's developers, community members, and real users through marketing, events, grants, and other activities.
10% Initial Incentives
The initial incentives portion mainly includes early reward programs to incentivize the growth of the Story ecosystem.
10% Foundation
The foundation portion includes support for foundation staff and the development of Story blockchain-related services. It also includes support for the basic services and education necessary for the long-term prosperity of the ecosystem.
21.6% Early Supporters
The early supporters portion includes the equity of early investors and advisors.
20% Core Contributors
The core contributors portion includes the costs for talent acquisition and the compensation for team members who have contributed to the development of the Story blockchain.
Initial Supply: 1,000,000,000 $IP
Initial Unlocked Supply: 25%
$IP Token Unlock Schedule
The unlock schedule for $IP tokens is expected as follows.
The community will be unlocked through initial incentives on the first day of the public mainnet launch.
Early supporters and core contributors remain locked, with a 48-month unlock period.
Fair Launch of Staking Function
Unlike previous launches that heavily favored insiders in staking rewards, the $IP staking follows a fair launch principle:
The foundation and early contributors have no early staking rewards — every member of the community will receive staking rewards simultaneously.
During the Singularity Period, which is the 42 days after our 1/19 Genesis Block, users can stake or delegate their stake — this period does not generate staking rewards, but provides everyone with the opportunity to decide whether to stake.
As the Big Bang event ends the Singularity Period, all users will fairly and simultaneously receive staking rewards.
What's Next?
The era of programmable IP has arrived, and $IP is at the core of this era.
Stay tuned for our latest updates, and feel free to follow our official X account @storyprotocol.
