A brief introduction to Story Protocol, which raised 140 million yuan, and how to participate

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

This article will answer your questions.

⭐️ What is Story Protocol?

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

Its core starting point is to solve the problems faced by creators in the existing IP management system, such as rights protection, complexity of the licensing process, and income distribution. Story Protocol provides creators with a new tool to transform creative assets into a dynamic ecosystem that is traceable and composable on the chain.

This month, Story Protocol announced a groundbreaking attempt: hiring 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 demonstrating the potential of AI in managing complex tasks, and further verifying Story's leadership in AI-driven intellectual property transactions.

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

• Seed round financing: led by a16z crypto, raising US$29.3 million.

• Series A financing: also led by a16z crypto, raising US$25 million.

• Series B financing: successfully completed in August 2024, raising US$80 million.

⭐️ Why is Story Protocol worth paying attention to?

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

On the other hand, the core value proposed by Story Protocol lies in its technical architecture and solutions, which can significantly improve the efficiency and transparency of IP management. The following are several highlights worth paying attention to:

1. Disruptive solutions

In traditional IP management, creators face the following pain points.

• Difficulty in protecting rights: It is often difficult for IP creators to prove the source of their rights, and the off-chain process is cumbersome and lacks transparency.

• Unfair distribution of benefits: The benefits of a large number of IP derivatives cannot be accurately returned to the original creators.

• Complicated licensing process: Manual negotiation and paperwork consume a lot of time and energy.

Story Protocol provides a decentralized, modular solution that automates all these processes, allowing creators to focus on the creativity itself.

2. Strong technical support

Layer 1-based design:

Story Protocol adopts a 100% EVM-compatible architecture, combined with the advantages of Cosmos SDK, which can quickly process complex data structures and adapt to a wide range of developer ecosystems.

Programmable IP module:

The core of Story Protocol is its modular design, including functional modules such as licensing, royalties, and dispute resolution. These modules not only enhance the flexibility of IP assets, but also give them new economic attributes. For example, the royalty module can realize the automatic flow of income between parent and child IPs, and the dispute module provides on-chain arbitration and marking 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), giving NFT the ability to be dynamically managed, such as automatically generating authorization tokens or handling revenue distribution. Simply put, IP assets are not just static proof of ownership, but an active economy.

ATCP/IP protocol innovation:

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

3. Pioneering application scenarios

Globalization and legal compliance:

Story Protocol supports global intellectual property protection and is aligned with international agreements such as the Berne Convention, providing legal protection for its on-chain authorization. This combination of on-chain and off-chain allows creators' rights to be recognized globally.

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 and share the benefits with other AI agents. This innovation has injected unlimited possibilities into the AI-driven economic ecology.

Community-driven open ecology:

Story Protocol's modular design is not only suitable for the official team, but also provides unlimited expansion space for third-party developers and creators. For example, developers can build new IP financial tools based on Story Protocol, and creators can use 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 a new horizon for the future creative economy.

⭐️ How does Story Protocol achieve its functions?

The main construction of its core technology is as follows:

• IP registration and account binding Through on-chain registration, each IP asset obtains a unique ERC-721 NFT, which is bound to the IP account (ERC-6551 implementation).

• Authorization module: Automatically handles authorization terms through Programmable IP License (PIL).

• Royalty module: Realizes income distribution and circulation 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, driving the creative economy towards decentralized autonomy.

• Ecosystem 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 Gameplay

The Odyssey Badge Program ended this month. As the last stage before the Story Protocol mainnet, the Odyssey testnet completed the casting of hundreds of thousands of badges. The testnet is still running, and users can continue to explore and interact with the ecosystem to prepare for the launch of the mainnet.

The latest activity available is the OG program, which is one of the core activities of the Story Protocol community, which aims to reward community members who actively support and sincerely contribute. The following is the relevant information about OG roles and how to obtain them:

• Seekers: Primary OG, awarded to members who have started to actively participate.

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

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

Interested users can participate in discussions on Discord, Telegram or Twitter, show their support for the community, participate in IP creation art competitions or other ecological activities, or submit valuable suggestions, and have the opportunity to obtain the corresponding role.

There is no "fast track" for OG roles. Everything is determined by the community's activity, and long-term inactivity or bad behavior may result in the cancellation of OG roles.

⭐️ Summary and Future Outlook

Story Protocol is not just a technology project, but also a new way of economic narrative. It transforms creative assets into a dynamic economy, 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?