Story Protocol Digest #060
Jan 27 - Feb 3, 2026
This week at Story was about tightening the screws on long-term alignment. From delaying $IP unlocks and shipping a mandatory network upgrade to closing major remix contests and doubling down on AI provenance, the protocol is clearly prioritizing sustainability over short-term optics as the ecosystem matures.
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$IP Tokenomics Update: Unlock Schedule Delayed by Six Months
Story Protocol announced that the initial unlock schedule for all locked $IP tokens is being delayed by six months. This affects all investors, team members, and insiders, meaning no new liquidity from locked tokens will enter circulation until August 13, 2026.
The decision follows the recent adjustments to staking emissions outlined in SIP-00009 and SIP-00010, continuing an approach of keeping token supply changes measured and sustainable. Total supply remains unchanged; the delay is focused on pacing and long-term alignment as the ecosystem continues to grow. The team indicated that more context on long-term vision and upcoming milestones will be shared soon.
Story v1.5.2 (Horace) Released
Story released v1.5.2 binaries on January 27, 2026, in preparation for scheduled upgrades on both Mainnet and Aeneid Testnet. This major release implements the emissions recalibration and locked staking multiplier adjustment outlined in SIP-00009.
All node operators must upgrade to v1.5.2 at least 100 blocks before block height 13780500, estimated to arrive on February 6, 2026 at 1:00 AM UTC. Nodes running older versions will become incompatible and halt after this block height.
Download the binaries and follow the upgrade guide for detailed instructions.
NANA Global Remix Contest Winners Announced
The Aria Protocol Global Remix Contest featuring K-pop star NANA has concluded, with winners selected from 171 global submissions. The top three finishers are Apollo XO in first place, Kizombaparty in second, and Thoai66 in third.
The contest demonstrated how the right infrastructure can open new revenue streams for IP owners through fan remixing. Listen to the winning remixes at nana.ariaprotocol.xyz or check out individual submissions from Apollo XO, Kizombaparty, and Thoai66.
IP Challenge #1 Winners Revealed
The first IP Challenge, which tested participants’ remixing skills through the Aria Protocol Global Remix Contest in partnership with Hitbox, has named its winners. Community leaders selected five participants based on the effort and quality of their remixes and posts: @thoai6sixx, @Hinz5522, @0xdudy, @Danzeronero, and @WisaamDimas.
OpenLedger Integrates Story for AI Provenance
OpenLedger announced it will power its AI stack on Story rails, integrating Story’s IP infrastructure to register training data, models, and intellectual property. The integration encodes how these assets can be used across training and inference, enabling AI training, agents, and AI-native derivatives to carry verifiable provenance and automatic attribution from creation to execution. OpenLedger is building an execution layer for AI where data, models, and agents operate with cryptographic proof and native value attribution.
Poseidon Publishes Technical Deep Dive on Voice AI Dataset
The Poseidon team published a technical deep dive on their Voice AI dataset, which contains over 33,000 hours of rights-cleared audio collected in just three weeks.
Unlike most voice datasets that prioritize English, studio audio, and clean conditions, the Poseidon dataset focuses on low-resource languages, real-world recording conditions, and new validation systems for transcript accuracy. In several languages, the dataset exceeds years of public data collection. All data is rights-cleared on Story.
Read the full technical breakdown
Local Host 3000 Explores One-Shot App Development
The latest session of Local Host 3000 from Story Engineers tackled practical vibe coding challenges, including debugging a recipe generator, building swipe-based UX, and exploring what it takes to one-shot an app. The series continues to emphasize that while AI accelerates development, it requires human judgment to build effectively.
Watch the replay or RSVP for the next session on February 4 at 2:00 PM ET.
Fraction AI and Story Discuss Piracy, Convenience, and IP Infrastructure
Fraction AI CEO Shai and Story Protocol President Jason Zhao discussed how platforms like Spotify and Netflix reduced piracy by making legal content easier to access than illegal alternatives, and what this means for IP infrastructure in the AI era.
The Case for a Provenance Layer
As AI-generated content tools like Genie 3 from Google AI and autonomous agent platforms like OpenClaw continue to expand what is possible, questions around ownership become increasingly complex. Story Protocol argues this is precisely why a provenance layer for IP is necessary, ensuring attribution and rights are tracked as content becomes more infinite and remixable.