On September 9, Beijing time, the Story Protocol token surged nearly 40% in a single day, reaching nearly $12 at one point, which is about 8 times higher than the $1.35 recorded after its listing on exchanges. Even compared to the approximately $2.4 phase low reached in mid-June, it has increased nearly 4 times. However, compared to the recent explosive growth of several "meme coins," the rise of IP (its token) is relatively moderate.
With this round of growth, the FDV of Story Protocol has exceeded $10 billion. According to CoinMarketCap data, the current circulating market cap ranking of the IP token is 40th, higher than APT (Aptos) and the recently surging MYX, but lower than ETC (Ethereum Classic) and ONDO.
Story Protocol is a protocol focused on the assetization of intellectual property (IP) and is one of the few projects that a16z has heavily invested in over the past two to three years.
On September 6, two years ago, Story Protocol announced the completion of a $29 million financing led by a16z crypto, along with a $29.3 million financing completed in May of the same year, bringing the total financing amount for Story Protocol at that time to over $54 million. Nearly a year later, in August 2024, Story Protocol announced the completion of an $80 million Series B financing, also led by a16z Crypto. According to reports from TechCrunch citing insiders, the post-investment valuation of the Series B financing reached $2.25 billion. Foresight Ventures also participated in both rounds of financing.
Story Protocol aims to build a vast ecosystem around "on-chain IP," and its ecosystem and projects within it have also attracted capital interest. In late June of this year, Story Protocol and OKX Ventures announced the establishment of a $10 million fund to support early teams operating at the intersection of intellectual property and artificial intelligence. In July, the AI decentralized data layer project Poseidon, built on Story Protocol, completed a $15 million seed round financing led by a16z.
Earlier, at the end of last year, the generative AI narrative platform Sekai, based on Story Protocol, announced the completion of a $3.1 million seed round financing, led by Hashed, with participation from a16z CSX.
I learned from insiders that some members of Story Protocol were introduced by a16z and transitioned from the ZKsync team to Story. It seems that a16z helps new projects achieve rapid growth by assigning executives from relatively mature projects in its portfolio to new projects.
Returning to the token IP itself, after its official launch in February this year, the price of IP experienced a rollercoaster ride, hitting bottom during the adjustment when Bitcoin reached a new phase high in May, and has since been on a steady upward trend.
The starting point for this rise was the aforementioned establishment of an ecological fund in collaboration with OKX Ventures. In July, Grayscale updated its "proposed asset list" and "existing product holding asset list," and the newly included projects for consideration included the Story Protocol token IP. At the end of July, Grayscale officially launched Grayscale Story Trust, bringing real buying power as a positive factor.
Subsequently, the launch of the IP DAT and Story IP buyback plans brought the market to a climax. A month ago, the Nasdaq-listed company Heritage Distilling announced it had secured $220 million in PIPE financing ($100 million in cash and $120 million in IP tokens) to establish a $360 million fund focused on IP. Investors included Story Foundation and leading institutions like a16z crypto. Heritage will allocate $82 million in revenue to purchase IP tokens from Story Foundation at a fixed price of $3.4. Story Foundation will strategically repurchase IP tokens on the open market using the $82 million from token sales within 90 days after the sale (from August 15 to November 16).
Two weeks after officially announcing this news, Heritage Distilling completed another $223.8 million private placement financing with participation from Story Foundation, a16z crypto, and others, continuing to advance its reserve plan. Just yesterday, when IP surged 40% in a single day, Heritage Distilling announced the official launch of the reserve for the native token IP, termed "IP Strategy."
The real buying power brought by DAT and Grayscale is the biggest driving force behind this round of growth, but the reason IP has not experienced a continuous decline like some tokens after their launch is that this sector is indeed one of the opportunities that the financial field is paying attention to.
Prior to this, the Story ecosystem has seen the emergence of many valuable projects, mainly focused on AI and music IP assetization. In terms of AI, there is no need to elaborate; although the narrative of "Web 3 + AI" still needs market validation, assetizing the intellectual property of AI algorithms themselves and empowering creators on related project platforms through collaboration with AI projects is indeed a direction worth exploring.
In terms of music IP assetization, the relevant progress is even more specific. At the beginning of the year, the IP RWA protocol Aria, based on Story, launched its first RWAIP asset: Justin Bieber's single "Peaches," with a total deposit cap of $7 million. By depositing the corresponding funds, users can obtain partial producer rights, management rights, and copyright rights for the single. This asset achieved full-chain liquidity through StakeStone.
Subsequently, Aria targeted the music copyrights of more well-known singers or groups, including the Korean group BLACKPINK, BigBang, and Western pop singers Katy Perry and Maroon 5. Story has also previously stated that it will hold the Origin Summit event during the Korea Blockchain Week, with the CEO of BTS's management company HYPE, the CEO of The Black Label (the new label of BLACKPINK & BIGBANG members), the CAO of SM Entertainment, and the CEO of SK Networks in attendance. The founder of Story had previously hinted at announcing some partnerships, making the event at the end of this month even more noteworthy.
In the past two to three years, music asset securitization has begun to boom on Wall Street. The "Alpha Factory Research Institute" pointed out in its article “Is it more attractive than corporate bonds? 'Music Asset Securitization' is booming on Wall Street” that investors such as Blackstone, Carlyle, and the Michigan State Pension Fund have raised at least $4.4 billion in debt financing secured by song copyrights this year. According to an analysis by the Financial Times, the amount of debt financing secured by music copyrights is expected to exceed $3.3 billion in 2024. The completion amount of such transactions in 2021 was only $300 million, and there were no recorded related transactions in 2020.
Securitization of intellectual property, and even tokenization, is a very promising sector in the future as quality assets become increasingly scarce. As RWA tokenization rapidly develops, with Nasdaq applying to the SEC to trade tokenized stocks, it is believed that more tokenized quality assets will enter the public secondary market.
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