Introducing the World’s IP Blockchain

Story is a purpose-built layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for intellectual property.

You can register your IP on-chain and add usage terms to it in seconds, massively lowering the barrier to the currently complex & antiquated legal system for IP. For example, enforcing “you owe me 50% of your commercial revenue if you use my IP” without needing time, money, or lawyers.

IP could be an image, a song, an RWA, AI training data, or anything in-between.

By making IP programmable on the blockchain, it becomes this transparent & decentralized global IP repository where AI agents (or any other software) and humans alike can transact on & monetize IP with a simple API call.

Quick FAQs

Brief Architecture Overview

There are several elements that make up Story as a whole. Below we will cover the most important components.

Story Network: “The World’s IP Blockchain”

Story Network is a purpose-built layer 1 blockchain achieving the best of EVM and Cosmos SDK. It is 100% EVM-compatible alongside deep execution layer optimizations to support graph data structures, purpose-built for handling complex data structures like IP quickly and cost-efficiently. It does this by:

  • using precompiled primitives to traverse complex data structures like IP graphs within seconds at marginal costs
  • a consensus layer based on the mature CometBFT stack to ensure fast finality and cheap transactions

”Proof-of-Creativity” Protocol

Our “Proof-of-Creativity” Protocol, made up of smart contracts written in Solidity, are natively deployed on Story Network and allow anyone to onramp IP to Story. Most of our documentation focuses on the protocol.

Creators register their IP as 🧩 IP Assets on Story. You use 🧱 Modules to interact with IP Assets. For example, enforcing proper usage of your IP via the Licensing Module, paying & claiming revenue via the Royalty Module, and disputing infringing IP via the Dispute Module.

Each IP Asset has an associated ERC721 NFT, which represents ownership over the IP. This means IP ownership can be bought & sold. Additionally, the licenses minted from an IP are also ERC721 NFTs, meaning you can buy & sell the rights to use an IP under certain terms. Together, this unlocks a new realm of IPFi.

Programmable IP License

Although on-chain, an IP’s usage terms and minted licenses are enforced by an off-chain legal contract called the Programmable IP License (PIL💊).

The PIL allows anyone to offramp tokenized IP on Story into the “real world” legal system and outlines real legal terms for how creators can remix, monetize, and create derivatives of their IP. The protocol, or more specifically the IP Assets and modules described above, are what automate and enforce those terms on-chain, creating a mapping between the legal world (PIL) and the blockchain.

Like USDC enables redemption for fiat, the PIL enables redemption for IP.

Examples