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Story Protocol, a layer-1 blockchain focused on the intellectual property space, peeled back the cover on its native $IP token today. As AI reshapes content creation, Story aims to provide a scalable, peer-to-peer intellectual property network that unlocks new monetization pathways while decentralizing control over the world's creative and scientific assets. TAM? How’s a $61 trillion intellectual property asset class for you?

How is Abstract doing?

The Abstract L2 zk rollup launched its mainnet two weeks ago. The team has built out a seamless UX with a decidedly consumer-focused strategy. 

Topline metrics, however, are not immediately impressive. Total bridged value into Abstract currently stands at about ~$38 million and chain usage is clocking out at a daily TPS of about two to five in the last seven days. 

Creator streaming, however, has gained considerable traction. Streamers (currently whitelisted) have received about $3.4 million in tips from users since launch.

— Donovan Choy

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SKALE, the gas-free invisible blockchain, is “Built Different” for mass adoption: high-throughput, scalable, and fair. As a network of interoperable EVM-compatible L1s, SKALE’s user experience focus has accelerated a strong ecosystem across gaming, AI, and more. Due to SKALE’s gas-free nature, blockchain can be integrated invisibly, creating accessible Web2-like experiences for users and developers.

SKALE has:

• Over 50M UAWs

• 9 Games on the Epic Games Store

• Saved Users over $9.5B on Gas Fees

Dive in to learn more.

Why Story built an L1

Story is a sovereign layer-1 blockchain built using the Cosmos SDK, CometBFT consensus and an added EVM execution — a custom Geth fork. This choice allows for full governance control, optimized execution for intellectual property workflows, and a staking economy based on its $IP token.

Standard blockchain environments — even high-performance chains like Solana — struggle with modeling the recursive licensing structures that intellectual property ecosystems require, the team said. Story’s unique graph-based architecture is specifically designed to handle the complex relationships between intellectual property assets, the team said.

While Story Protocol’s vision of a graph-based intellectual property economy is ambitious, its decision to launch an entirely new layer-1 with its own token instead of, say, a validium rollup, is worth scrutinizing.

Many projects claim to need a custom execution environment, only to ascribe an L1 premium to their tokens. Could Story not have built this as a rollup with a purpose-built intellectual property layer on top?

The Cosmos SDK grants Story more sovereignty, but at the cost of fragmenting liquidity, security and developer mindshare. Many similar application-specific chains have struggled to justify their independence beyond token incentives. Rollups benefit from inheriting Ethereum’s deep liquidity and mature validator set, and even Cosmos chains are trending toward greater use of Interchain security.

The role and tokenomics of $IP

$IP serves multiple key functions in the Story ecosystem, according to a blog released today. Such functions include:

• Securing the network: Validators stake $IP to participate in consensus.

• Gas token: $IP is required for all onchain interactions.

• Governance: Token holders shape the future of Story Protocol through governance decisions.

Story has structured $IP's supply and distribution to prioritize long-term community participation. The total supply is set at 1 billion $IP, with an initial unlocked supply of 25%.

A portion of $IP is burned with each transaction, potentially reducing supply over time.

‘Fair Launch’ staking

Unlike many token launches that benefit early insiders, Story’s staking mechanism ensures that no one earns staking rewards before the community does. February is part of what the protocol is calling the “Singularity Period,” during which users can stake or delegate tokens without earning rewards yet. Only after the “Big Bang” event on March 2 will rewards begin accruing to all participants at the same time.

Public mainnet access is set to launch alongside an initial claim for the community. Importantly, locked tokens will also have their staking rewards locked for a minimum of six months, though that may be extended, a spokesperson told Blockworks.

AI and IPFi

A fascinating prospect is the potential for intellectual property-based DeFi primitives — or IPFi. 

Teams like Unleash, Verio and Color are already developing marketplaces, restaking mechanisms and lending/borrowing infrastructure for intellectual property-backed assets. The example of Aria securing real TVL on intellectual property, including assets like Justin Bieber’s Peaches, is interesting. 

However, the real test will come once the public mainnet launches.

For now, whether intellectual property assets can be meaningfully used as collateral outside of Story Protocol remains theoretical. That said, LayerZero (LZ) integration means that some form of cross-chain composability will be possible from day one — an indicator that Story’s intellectual property-backed assets could plug into Ethereum-based DeFi protocols if liquidity and demand exists.

For more on Story, tap into its recent X spaces.

 — Macauley Peterson

Superform USDC deposits:

USDC deposits on Superform’s SuperUSDC vaults are right now generating a 30-day APY of ~13.8%. That yield is generated when you lend out your capital to various Ethereum lending markets, which Superform automatically rebalances periodically for optimized yields.

The strategy also accumulates Superform’s CRED points that you can forego for a higher fixed rate of 22.1%. This is possible by depositing the YSUSDC receipt token from Superform into Spectra, a Pendle-like yield trading protocol. The Spectra pool in question, however, has fairly low liquidity of $255k, so this is likely not a strategy one can farm in size.

For other stablecoin yield farms, look to Ether.fi “Liquid” vaults. The UltraYield stablecoin vault works similarly to the above Superform vault, and is currently delivering a 12.5% APY (with Ether.fi and Veda points). Finally, users can also deposit stablecoins into the Market-Neutral USD vault, which is converted to weETH and deposited into lending protocols to generate a 15.2% APY (30-day trailing).

— Donovan Choy

Permissionless IV is where the next wave of onchain innovation comes to life. Whether you're coding through a high-energy hackathon, exploring the latest dev tools, or meeting the minds shaping the space — this is where your dream ideas turn into reality.

Best of all, developers participating in the hackathon attend for free.

Brooklyn in the summer, an over $100k prize pool, and a room full of builders. You in?

📅 June 22–26 | Brooklyn, NY