Story Protocol Digest #050
Nov 18 - 25, 2025
Story fired on all cylinders this week: data networks went decentralized, confidential rails went programmable, and the ecosystem kept expanding from K-Builders to TV screens to millions of hours of learning data. With new metrics, new integrations, new IP flows, and a mandatory hardfork on the horizon, the network is scaling both its imagination and its infrastructure at the same pace.
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Poseidon Brings Decentralized Data Collection to Story
Most platforms treat data collection as a centralized process. @psdnai is building something fundamentally different: Subnetworks that decentralize the entire pipeline. Take their Audio Transcription Subnetwork as an example. Contributors upload real voice samples. Validators check for duplication, AI generation, and accuracy. Once verified, the dataset is registered as IP on Story and licensed to AI companies as training data. The result is decentralized pipelines for real-world data with provenance and validation baked in, rewarding the contributors who helped build them.
Programmable IP Unlocks Access to Previously Unreachable Markets
Story turns IP into composable building blocks. Each piece fits into another, forming something new, while the original and future creators are always recognized and rewarded. The ecosystem is already making this possible: Your favorite Justin Bieber or BLACKPINK songs pay out yields from income rights via @Aria_Protocol. Major crypto IPs like @moonbirds and @Azuki can be used to create games and custom merch with AI through @ABLO_Official and @Verse_Eight. Datasets used to train physical AI models reward the contributors who helped build them via @psdnai. This is what programmable IP enables: access to new markets and assets that were previously out of reach to the everyday user.
IP Strategy Makes Strategic Purchase of Aria Ecosystem Tokens
IP Strategy has made a strategic purchase of @Aria_Protocol‘s ecosystem tokens, $ARIAIP and $APL, expanding exposure to real-world IP applications built on Story. Aria enables investors to access and earn from IP-based RWAs, bringing income-producing IP rights on-chain as fungible, liquid assets. The platform has already tokenized catalogs from BTS, Justin Bieber, BLACKPINK, Madonna, and Miley Cyrus. $ARIAIP governs the protocol while $APL provides yield exposure to real music royalty flows. These assets add selective exposure to one of the most commercially advanced IP RWA models in the market and complement IP Strategy’s core $IP reserves and revenue-generating validator business as programmable IP continues to scale. Read the press release here. Learn more at ipstrategy.co.
K-Builders Returns to Seoul November 20
The future gets built in Seoul. K-Builders, a new event series highlighting the latest developer momentum unfolding in Korea, takes place November 20 at World Flagship Space, Seoul, co-hosted by @worldcoin, @dsrvlabs, and @0xShardLab. The event features presentations and demos from Worldcoin, Verse Eight, DSrv Labs, and 0xShardLab, sponsored by @DCENTWALLETS. RSVP to join here.
Curated by Aria Now Streaming on Smart TVs Worldwide
“Curated by Aria” is now live on @seditionart, streaming digital art across @SamsungTV, @LGUS, and @AppleTV Smart TVs. Artworks selected by Aria, and soon the Aria community, are now viewable on millions of screens around the world. This launch aligns with Sedition’s new partnerships with LG and Samsung, expanding their network of 6,000+ artworks from 1,000+ artists to millions of screens globally. The timing is significant: Smart TVs are estimated to reach approximately 1.1B homes globally by 2026, with Samsung and LG representing nearly half of global TV market revenue. The digital art market is projected to grow from $12B to approximately $40B by 2032, and Sedition has pioneered the industry since 2012 as the first ever digital art platform. Aria began with music, but creative IP doesn’t stop there. Now the community can experience, engage with, and soon earn from visual art too. Art is meant to travel, through galleries, homes, and countries. Together, Aria and Sedition are carrying it beyond any one wall, unlocking new visibility, new support, and new value for the artists who create it and the communities who champion it.
Story Network Metrics Now Live on Dune
Story is now live on @Dune. Explore Story network metrics in real-time with customizable dashboards and queries. Starting today, all onchain activity on Story, IP registrations, license mints, royalty routes, derivative chains, and more, is fully queryable, visualizable, and exportable on Dune. This integration brings transparency and analytical depth to the entire Story ecosystem, enabling developers, researchers, and community members to track programmable IP in action. Read more here.
Confidential Data Rails Brings Programmable Privacy to Story
Programmable confidentiality is here. Confidential Data Rails (CDR) turns encrypted data into onchain building blocks, paving the way for new privacy use-cases on Story and beyond. Originally built for “IP Vault,” the architecture quickly matured to support real-world encrypted workloads, resulting in a general-purpose system for confidential data movement. CDR lets you move encrypted data under programmable, onchain rules: encrypt a file, attach it to an IP asset, and licensed recipients can automatically decrypt it without the data ever being exposed. Crucially, CDR doesn’t store raw files onchain, it stores the encrypted keys that unlock those files, making confidentiality and scale a native part of Story’s IP stack. Programmability applied to encrypted data means IP owners can define when, where, and how data is unlocked, enforced by a decentralized TEE network through threshold decryption. The result is private data that’s portable while staying permissioned. CDR opens the door for confidential delivery of high-value IP data, secure marketplaces for AI datasets, protected sharing of API keys and integration secrets, and IP as collateral for DeFi and beyond. Read the technical paper here.
Magma Registers 6,700 IP Assets Since Story Integration
Running back the numbers on remixing app @magma_com since they integrated Story for IP protection: 6,700 IP assets registered and 3,000+ licenses generated. Remix and collaborate on Magma knowing your work is credited and protected, unlocking a wider canvas for creativity.
Community Spotlight: New OGs and IP Leads Join Story
The Story community continues to grow as IP Mods, IP Leads, and IP Challenges create new ways to get involved. OGs remain a core pillar of the community, and soon the path to OG will be clearer with rising standards that fit the title. This week’s batch of five: @ferrxrewi keeps up with every new update in the Story ecosystem and regularly tests the projects that roll out. As part of the growing Indonesian community, he has stayed consistent and curious, moving from Seeker to Adept. @kumar16629 has become known for clear explainers of new Story posts and for joining almost every activity and game the community puts together, now entering the OG Room as a Seeker. @Sviatoslav_day has been with the community since last September and remains a steady part of the Russian subcommunity, returning to Seeker. @choudharykmr from Pakistan continues to create thoughtful content for the Story ecosystem on X, earning a well-deserved step into the Seeker role. Joining the IP Leads is @Oooz233_btc. Check out the launch of the first IP Challenge for your chance to become an IP Challenger here.
EDUM Migrates to Story, Bringing Millions of Hours of Learning Data
The acceleration of AI demands a new model for training data. @EDUMOfficial is migrating to Story to unlock economic value for global education and AI. With millions of hours of verified learning data, EDUM turns study patterns and focus metrics into real, licensable IP. Built by Jinhaksa, Korea’s #1 EdTech leader for 25+ years, EDUM powers the StudyRich app (100K+ installs) and developed Bio-AI Earbuds in collaboration with LG Electronics to track focus using biometric signals. Through Story, EDUM will tokenize learning and biometric data as verifiable IP, build a global education and AI data economy, expand from Korea into a global IP network, and provide transparent, auditable provenance for learner-generated data.
First Prediction Markets on Story Go Live
The first prediction markets on Story are live. @MusicByVirtuals is betting that culture is as tradable as price, and now there’s a platform to prove it. Zcash price, Kpop charts, predictions settled on Story. MUSIC expands the canvas of prediction markets from financial to cultural IP, from speculation to participation. Built with MUSIC, powered by Story: banged.ai.
Story v1.4.1 Release: Mandatory Hardfork Upgrade Scheduled
Story has released a mandatory Mainnet hardfork upgrade for the consensus layer binaries. The new version, Story v1.4.1 (codenamed Terence), was released on November 17th, 2025 at 02:18 UTC. The hardfork is scheduled to occur at Upgrade Height 11538000, currently estimated for December 5th, 2025 between 06:00 and 10:00 UTC. All node operators must download, install, and run the upgraded binaries before the specified Upgrade Height for continued Story network consensus participation. This release is vital for network health, continued security improvements, payload encoding optimization, and staking API enrichment. Failure to upgrade may result in nodes being out of sync with other Mainnet operators, leading to stake slashing after 1.5 days out of sync. View the countdown timer at storyscan.io and review the full release notes on GitHub.