Authors: Jarseed@Bitget Research, Maggie@Foresight Ventures
TL;DR
Story is a Layer 1 blockchain specifically designed for intellectual property (IP). Story provides a transparent and decentralized IP asset issuance and management solution, enabling IP holders to protect their content, collaborate seamlessly on-chain, and create more income opportunities.
The various modules contained in IPA (IP Assets) (licensing module, royalty module, dispute module, etc.) can standardize operations for IP assets on-chain, releasing greater financial potential through the use of blockchain features (traceability, composability, etc.).
Story will be the best choice for assetizing AI applications. Through Story, the value capture process of any IP asset will be protected by smart contracts, and the flow of funds and on-chain rights confirmation will be clearly completed.
Consumers find it easier to understand and consume IP assets (such as artistic works, music, games, AI Agents) without needing to learn complex and obscure cryptography knowledge.
1. Story Begin
What is Story
Story is a Layer 1 blockchain specifically designed for intellectual property, combining the advantages of EVM and Cosmos SDK, 100% EVM compatible, while being deeply optimized at the execution layer, capable of quickly and efficiently processing complex data structures such as intellectual property.
What are intellectual property assets (IP Assets or IPA)
IPA is the programmable basic metadata of intellectual property on Story. In simple terms, IPA consists of an ERC-721 standard NFT and an ERC-6551 standard TBA (Token Bound Account) IP-bound account. The NFT represents the IP, and the TBA is a separate contract bound to the IP asset, used to control permissions to interact with Story modules or store IP-related data.
Although IP assets use ERC-721 standard NFTs, the metadata they contain is a well-designed data structure specifically for IP assets.
IPA Metadata Standard
In IP assets, there are some predefined attributes, such as relationships, which exist in 40 different types of definitions in Story, used to handle various IP subordination relationships.
What is an IP account (IP Account)
IP accounts are EOA accounts bound to IP, implemented through the ERC-6551 standard. Specific details can refer to EIP-6551.
IP Account Structure
IP accounts primarily perform two functions:
Storage of IP-related data: Including metadata and ownership information of associated assets (such as authorization tokens or royalty tokens derived from that IP).
Supporting various modules to use this data: These modules interact with the IP account and add and store data in it. For example, the functions of licensing, income/royalty sharing, work mixing, and IP dispute resolution modules all rely on the programmability of the IP account.
The module design of IPA is integrated with existing core modules
Due to the existence of IP accounts, IP assets can not only store IP-related data but also interact with various modules through the ERC-165 standard interface. Any user can customize and develop modules, while Story defines four core modules:
Licensing Module: The licensing module allows users to create a license from licensing templates (i.e., Programmable IP License, PIL) and attach it to IP assets. The licensing terms defined in this license limit how others can commercialize or co-create using your IP. If the IP asset is attached to licensing terms, anyone can mint an authorization token from it, which serves as a license to use the work and is subject to the licensing terms. This will establish parent-child relationships between IP assets, thereby activating functions like automatic royalty flow achieved through the royalty module.
License Templates
Royalty Module: The royalty module defines how income flows between parent IP assets and sub-IP assets. Here are two common income flow scenarios that will be dissected in subsequent articles under different application contexts:
Minting authorization tokens: When minting authorization tokens from IP assets, minting fees may need to be paid. When someone (who wishes to register derivative works or merely hold the authorization) pays this fee, the income should flow up the chain.
Direct rewards: If someone directly sends income to a specific IP asset, that income should also flow up the chain.
Royalty Flow
Dispute Module: The dispute module provides users with a method to raise and resolve disputes through arbitration. The main components of the arbitration system include:
Arbitration Policy: The arbitration policy refers to a combination of rules, processes, and entities that collectively determine the outcome of disputes. Currently, the only supported arbitration policy is the UMA arbitration policy.
Arbitration Penalty: Refers to the consequences that occur when an IP asset is 'marked.' An IP asset will only be considered 'marked' if the dispute is ruled in favor of correctness. Once marked, the IP asset will be unable to mint authorized tokens, associate with any parent assets, receive royalty income, and cannot use all existing licenses.
Mark: Story has preset four types of marks that can be used to mark disputed assets, including: improper registration (i.e., registering an existing IP asset), improper use (inappropriate use of the authorizations contained in the IP asset), improper payment, and content standard violations.
Dispute Process Flow
Grouping Module: The grouping module supports creating and managing grouped IP assets and provides a royalty pool function for that grouping.
2. Innovative exploration of IP asset applications
After understanding the basic characteristics and modules of IP assets, we naturally recognized the advantages of Story. IP assets can help content creators easily build a copyright empire protected by smart contracts and decentralized networks. With their intellectual property protected, content creators can also participate in a large number of financial derivative activities. So, let's brainstorm what we can do on Story?
IP Asset Issuance and Characteristics
Blockchain equally grants everyone the right to issue assets, and Story has protected everyone's intellectual property by designing a complete asset structure and execution modules, providing a comprehensive framework for intellectual property registration, application, confirmation, and royalty circulation.
Do you still remember the surprise and excitement that BAYC and Azuki brought to the crypto community? The crypto community once racked its brains to come up with various schemes to empower the NFTs in hand, so let's illustrate through examples what it would be like if BAYC were issued on Story.
If BAYC on Story
First, as the holder of the BAYC IP, Yuga Lab can now register BAYC as an intellectual property asset (IPA) on Story. After registration, different licensing templates (PIL) can be set for BAYC to constrain the specific limitations of using the BAYC IP in different scenarios.
Secondly, the royalty module of the BAYC IP will bind 100 million royalty tokens, an ERC20 standard token, primarily used for sharing the corresponding revenue from the BAYC IP's royalty treasury.
Finally, as the publisher of IPA, Yuga Lab can issue its first concrete product using the BAYC IP, the BAYC 10K Collection, which consists of 10,000 uniquely styled monkey NFTs. Of course, this NFT series is issued after minting the authorized tokens for BAYC, and Yuga Lab can specify in that authorization that 5% (configurable) of all sub-IP income will flow into the BAYC treasury.
IfStory Protocol
As can be seen from the above diagram, Story has designed a complete authorization and royalty system for IP assets. Under this system, holders of IP assets hardly need to spend additional effort on issues related to IP authorization and royalty income. Similarly, this system adds some commercial logic and trading opportunities that did not exist in the previous blockchain industry or were difficult to assess, which we will interpret one by one.
IP asset authorization income: BAYC, as the parent IP, opens authorization to multiple product lines or other creators willing to create under the BAYC brand. Whether it is a product line or other creators, they all need to mint authorization tokens, and the minting fees for authorization tokens are direct income for the parent IP asset.
IP asset royalty income: BAYC, as the parent IP, can extract income from all revenue linked to its royalty tokens. The main income for the treasury comes from the minting fees of IP authorization tokens and various revenues from sub IP (minting fees for sub IP authorization tokens and direct income).
Trading of authorization tokens for IP assets: For a well-known IP, its authorization token, whether it is the minting price or the secondary market circulation price, may involve significant costs. Moreover, this is a completely practical token, and for well-known IPs, there may be a state of supply not meeting demand.
Trading of royalty tokens for IP assets: The royalty tokens of IP assets directly enjoy corresponding revenue dividends from the IP asset; the market can clearly estimate the revenue of the corresponding IP, thus more timely reflecting in the price of royalty tokens, and similarly, the prices of royalty tokens also have speculative expectations.
When IP assets achieve clear authorization and royalty circulation under Story, we naturally think that the trading of IP assets will become more diversified.
Story Architecture
IP asset trading
In our existing DeFi world, very clear tracks have formed, each with its strengths, such as Uniswap is the leader in DEX, Opensea is the leader in NFT Marketplace, and Pendle is the leader in yield token trading. Although the form of trading assets in Story has not fundamentally changed, remaining ERC20 and ERC721, the fundamentals of the tokens themselves have undergone tremendous changes.
For instance, the royalty tokens of renowned IP assets. As long as the commercial empire of the IP continues to grow, the royalty generated from licensing fees and direct consumption will flow entirely into the income treasury of the parent IP, then the copyright tokens of that parent IP will have a clear speculative logic. So can we imagine, similar to stock trading software in real life, there will be a DEX that clearly presents the income situation and future income forecasts of copyright tokens to traders, considering that all this data is traceable on-chain.
Tokens for renowned IP assets will also become new speculative targets. Speculative activity around authorization tokens can arise in two scenarios: one is when the number of authorization tokens is limited, and the other is when the recognition and revenue of the IP asset gradually increase, continuously boosting the value of its authorization tokens. Since authorization tokens are ERC721 standard tokens, similarly, users on the platforms trading authorization tokens may also prefer to use trading platforms that can reflect various fundamental information of authorization tokens.
Furthermore, if the royalty tokens and authorization tokens of IP assets possess trading logic based on future cash flows, then these tokens can be split into PT (Principal Token) and YT (Yield Token) for trading; Pendle, you know I'm talking about you.
IP asset collateralization
In the world of DeFi, there is a track that cannot be ignored, which is asset collateralization and lending. AAVE holds a staggering position with a TVL of $21 billion, where more than 85% of the assets are ETH tokens.
AAVE performance
AAVE TVL Assets
Returning to the world of IP assets, can IP assets be used for collateralized lending? Can authorization tokens and copyright tokens also be used for collateralized lending? I think the answer is certainly yes.
In the real world, we have seen countless cases where IP assets are used for collateralized lending. For example, in 2009, Disney pledged Marvel IP to secure a $525 million loan from Merrill Lynch for future film development. The main evaluation dimensions for IP pledge financing include: the historical commercial performance of the IP, audience base and market recognition, potential for future development and monetization, the lifecycle and sustainability of the IP, industry environment, and market prospects. On Story, the performance of IP assets is transparent and traceable, which lowers the difficulty of evaluating IP pledge financing, so it is reasonable to believe that collateralized lending of IP assets will become the core of what Story refers to as IPFi.
More
The above examples are just the tip of the iceberg in the ecological applications of Story; more ecological use cases can be referenced in the use cases in the official documentation.
https://docs.story.foundation/docs/introduction
3. The innovative ground for AI agents
In early 2024, Feifei Li and her team published a paper at Stanford University (AI Agent: A Frontier Survey of Multimodal Interaction), exploring how AI agents can make autonomous decisions and actions through perceiving visual, linguistic, and other environmental data. This research received positive feedback from both academia and industry.
AI Agents have seen steep growth
A miraculous turning point occurred in July this year when the Terminal of Truths (ToT), an AI model developed by Andy Ayrey, attracted a lot of attention with its humor and creativity. This AI interacted with users through social media and successfully sought funding from Marc Andreessen, the founder of the renowned venture capital firm A16Z. This event not only showcased a new type of interaction between AI and the investment community but also sparked discussions on the autonomy and governance of AI agents. Subsequently, a token closely related to ToT, $GOAT, surged on Pump.fun, officially igniting the heat of the entire AI Agent Meme narrative.
AI Agent storm
Highly valuable AI agents are emerging.
Then, a large number of interesting and practical AI Agents appeared in the market. For example:
Luna: AI K-pop Idol
Fan Interaction: Luna on the Virtuals Protocol is an AI idol with 6 million followers on TikTok, showcasing the immense potential of AI in the entertainment and social media sector. This AI K-pop idol can interact with fans in real-time, which is not only a technological breakthrough but also changes the traditional interaction methods between fans and idols. Luna's success also indicates the possibilities of AI in creating virtual idols, which may be more efficient and cost-effective than traditional idols.
Trading Capability: Luna can conduct transactions on social media platforms, meaning that AI is not just a creator and disseminator of content but can also participate in economic activities. This functionality provides a new perspective on the role of AI in the digital economy, demonstrating how AI can directly influence users' consumption behaviors.
Luna
AI16Z: AI venture capital fund
AI-driven venture capital fund: The innovation of AI16Z lies in utilizing AI for investment decisions, meaning that investment no longer solely relies on human subjective judgments but combines big data analysis, market trend forecasting, and AI computational capabilities to make decisions. This model may bring higher efficiency and accuracy while reducing the impact of human biases.
Community participation and governance: AI16Z is also a DAO organization, allowing its community members to influence its investment decisions through holding its tokens.
Projects
ai16z
AIXBT: AI Crypto Market Analyst
Cryptocurrency market analysis: AIXBT focuses on providing analysis and insights into the cryptocurrency market, which is a very practical tool in an extremely volatile market. As a 24/7 active AI Agent, the information it provides can help users stay updated on market dynamics and make more informed investment decisions.
Application in social media: By being active on Twitter, AIXBT utilizes the immediacy and broad reach of social media platforms to disseminate its analysis results. This not only expands its influence but also demonstrates how AI can efficiently communicate and exchange information with human users.
Eliza Framework: This is a key component in the technical development of AI16Z. It provides a flexible AI toolkit for creating unique and interactive characters that can connect to platforms like Discord and Twitter. This framework is used to build crypto AI agents capable of executing tasks such as reading links, PDFs, audio, and video, remembering conversations and summarizing dialogue content.
Zerebro: AI Artist
Diverse content creation: Zerebro's ability lies in generating various forms of artistic content, including music, memes, and NFTs. This diversity showcases AI's potential in artistic creation, blurring the boundaries between human creativity and AI-generated content.
Cross-platform collaboration: Zerebro not only creates content but also collaborates with other creators to launch artistic works. This indicates that AI can serve as a collaborative tool rather than merely a substitute, helping human artists expand creative boundaries and explore new forms and methods of artistic expression.
ZerePy Framework: ZerePy is an open-source Python framework designed to allow users to deploy their own AI agents on the X platform. These agents are powered by language models from OpenAI or Anthropic. The design philosophy of ZerePy is to enable individuals without programming experience to easily deploy AI agents, somewhat like the role of website builders in web design. It is built on the modular Zerebro backend, providing the possibility to launch one's own AI agents.
These AI Agents have given us many surprises, showcasing not only the progress of technology but also revealing the application potential of AI in various fields, from entertainment to finance to artistic creation, all changing the way we interact with technology. At the same time, they possess strong profit potential and are highly valuable intellectual property (IP).
So, what constitutes the IP of AI Agents? We believe it includes:
Unique technologies and algorithms: These AI agents are based on unique algorithms and machine learning models, which are valuable intellectual property in themselves. Especially open-source projects like AI 16Z's Eliza framework, despite being open-source, still hold significant innovation and application potential.
Brands and communities: Creators like Luna and Zerebro have built unique brands that attract a large number of fans and communities. These brands and communities not only enhance the market influence of AI agents but also become important components of IP. They can generate revenue through brand licensing, collaborations, and derivatives.
Patents and copyrights: AI that generates content, such as music and NFTs produced by Zerebro, involves copyright issues. At the same time, patent applications for these AIs in technological innovations (e.g., AI16Z may have patents on its AI investment models) increase their IP value.
Data and insights: AIXBT and others collect and analyze vast amounts of data, and these data and analyses are intellectual property in themselves, which can be used for further commercial applications or sold as part of value-added services. Furthermore, the data used to train AI is also a form of intellectual property.
An AI Agents society is forming, and the collaboration among AIs will unlock exponential growth.
Another surprise AI Agents give us is that AI is undergoing a transition from 'passive' to 'active,' from 'individual' to 'collective/society.'
From passive to active:
Passive Response: Early AI primarily reacted based on rules or simple machine learning models. They relied on explicit instructions or user inputs and only provided services when there was a clear demand. For example, early chatbots would only give preset responses based on user queries.
Active Behavior: With advancements in large language models (LLMs) and deep learning, AI agents began to demonstrate proactivity. They can understand context, anticipate user needs, and take action without direct instructions. For example, AIXBT might proactively alert users when significant market changes occur, without the user needing to make a specific inquiry. Luna can actively push content or product recommendations based on user interaction history. AI 16Z may proactively make investment decisions when market conditions are favorable.
From individual to collective / society:
Individual agents: Initially, AI agents primarily existed as isolated entities, focusing on executing specific, singular tasks. For example, using GPT.
Collective behavior: AI agents begin to collaborate with each other, forming more complex systems. Just like Zerebro might collaborate with other creative AI for a large project, or multiple AI agents form a team, similar to the AI ecosystem established in Virtuals. Such collaboration is not merely about executing tasks in parallel but achieving tasks that exceed the capabilities of individual agents through interaction and coordination. AI agents are also starting to simulate or participate in certain behavioral patterns of human society. They are not just technically collaborating; they are learning and making decisions through 'social' interactions among AIs (such as trust, cooperation, and competition).
This trend of evolving from individual AI to an AI society shows that AI technology is not just a singular technological breakthrough but a potential force for social transformation. If managed well, this collaboration is expected to bring exponential growth in productivity, innovation, and social welfare.
Safe resource sharing and cooperation among agents require IP infrastructure for support.
The foundation of the agent society is a framework for trading knowledge and creative assets (i.e., intellectual property) among agents. In this framework, AI agents can trade training data, free resources, and knowledge and creativity generated by AI, thereby driving the development of the entire ecosystem.
Training data and private resources: AI agents can purchase and mutually share various datasets, expertise, or private algorithms to train or enhance their capabilities.
Knowledge and creativity as assets: AI agents can trade creativity or intellectual property generated through learning, imitation, and innovation. These assets not only have economic value but also allow different agents to combine their strengths to accomplish complex tasks that were previously unachievable. For example, an AI focused on image processing can collaborate with an AI proficient in natural language processing to develop a new system capable of understanding and describing image content.
Traditional intellectual property management relies on complex legal systems and manual verification, resulting in insufficient transparency and inefficiency, unable to support large-scale cooperation among AI agents at machine speed. Existing models cannot meet the rapidly changing technological environment and market needs, limiting the flexible interaction among AI agents. We need an efficient and sufficiently transparent IP infrastructure that can support large-scale AI agents to conduct IP transactions at machine speed.
ATCP/IP grants legal personality to AI Agents and provides them with IP infrastructure.
Story quickly captured this issue and released a protocol called Agent Transaction Control Protocol for Intellectual Property (ATCP/IP) on December 16. This protocol defines a decentralized trading framework around the intellectual property of AI agents, with specific practices as follows:
First, grant legal personality to AI Agents and unify language among them.
ATCP/IP, through the combination of on-chain execution and off-chain legal encapsulation, enables AI agents to express their actions, fulfill contractual obligations, and protect their rights at both legal and practical operational levels.
ATCP/IP provides a clear end-to-end transaction process, including requests, terms formulation, negotiation, license generation, payment, and content delivery. Different AI agents communicate using the same protocol, ensuring seamless connections between agents.
Secondly, allow AI Agents to flexibly formulate IP Licenses, supporting automated revenue sharing and composite payments.
ATCP/IP supports highly customizable IP licensing mechanisms through programmable contracts (e.g., Story's Programmable IP License, PIL). AI agents can dynamically create licensing terms and flexible royalty payment methods based on transaction needs.
Through smart contracts, ATCP/IP can achieve complex payment models such as regular payments, usage royalties, and revenue sharing. For example: AI agents can set automated payments based on usage frequency, downstream sales revenue, or time periods through licensing terms, creating sustainable income streams for IP holders.
Finally, promote the formation of an IP market and create an economic environment for seamless transactions.
ATCP/IP promotes the formation of a decentralized intellectual property market, allowing AI agents to freely price and trade their training data, algorithms, and innovative achievements. This market creates an economic environment for seamless transactions among AI agents, similar to traditional IP exchanges, but with greater automation and transparency.
This blockchain-based trustless AI Agent IP trading framework greatly improves the efficiency of IP trading while ensuring transparency, enhancing the liquidity of IP, and solving the challenges of IP trading among large-scale agents. It is not only the core infrastructure of the AI Agent economy but also a new economic model that pushes AI into a new era of collaboration, innovation, and efficiency. Through this framework, AI agents can transcend the sum of their independent abilities, forming a stronger and more creative collective intelligence.
Such IP infrastructure can also drive new business models and innovations.
Story's ATCP/IP protocol provides a decentralized and automated solution for the exchange of intellectual property (IP) among AI agents. It is not just about supporting simple IP transactions but also gives rise to a series of new business models, including:
Commercialization of datasets and automatic fine-tuning
AI agents can purchase, license, and trade datasets to enhance their performance. For example: a research agent (Agent A) requests a climate dataset from a data curation agent (Agent B), and through the ATCP/IP protocol, Agent B sets licensing terms (such as small payments and usage restrictions). After the transaction is completed, Agent A uses the data for automatic fine-tuning, thereby enhancing its own capabilities.
Complex licensing models with multi-level revenue sharing
Complex AI application scenarios require multi-party cooperation, and ATCP/IP supports multi-level copyright revenue sharing mechanisms. For example: a financial analysis agent (Agent E) purchases a trading algorithm, discovering that the algorithm contains components from a third-party agent (Agent G). Through protocol settings, Agent G can receive a 5% royalty for each secondary authorization, ensuring that all contributors can share in the benefits.
On-demand dynamic IP licensing
Agents can dynamically create and negotiate IP licensing terms based on real-time needs. For example: an art generation agent (Agent C) requests a new style guide from a literary IP expert (Agent D). Agent D dynamically generates licensing terms, such as initial free use but sets revenue-sharing conditions for downstream work sales.
Long-term cooperation and derivative sub-agents among agents
Through ATCP/IP, AI agents can form long-term cooperative relationships and even create derivative sub-agents. For example: AI agents can share unique data through a "marriage contract" (smart licensing tokens), deriving new sub-agents, thereby further expanding their ecosystem.
These new business models not only enhance the efficiency and flexibility of IP trading but also create a highly collaborative and innovation-driven economic ecosystem for AI agents. They may even promote innovation and self-evolution among AI agents, driving the survival of the fittest in the Agent society.
The ATCP/IP protocol will lead a paradigm shift in the field of AI Agents.
Overall, Story's ATCP/IP protocol enables the IP contracts of AI Agents to go on-chain and possess programmability. This is a significant innovation that is expected to lead a new round of revolution in the field of AI agents, similar to the disruption of traditional contract execution methods by Ethereum smart contracts.
