Real world assets (RWA), artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property (IP) are gradually becoming the three most imaginative main lines in the Web3 world.
RWA set off a wave of enthusiasm in 2023 and has now entered a stage of more refined asset classification; AI broke out in 2024, bringing a historic leap in market value to Nvidia; and IP, once regarded as a cold track, has been redefined as the energy engine of Web3 due to the rapid development of AI - it is both the source of content and the core structure of data assets. Grayscale has listed IP tokenization as a key focus in its Q2 2025 report .
What would happen if these three paths were connected?
As a Layer 1 company committed to building an open, programmable IP market, Story is trying to provide an answer.
Recently, the Story ecosystem has been active, with projects such as MUSIC, Aria and Emergence launching multi-dimensional explorations: from AI generation to on-chain rights confirmation, from music IP RWA tokenization to decentralized co-construction of franchise assets, a new world of IP creation, rights confirmation, splitting, profit sharing and inheritance is taking shape.
MUSIC: AI + Hot Posts = Tradable On-Chain Music Assets
Against the backdrop of the AIGC explosion, the issues of ownership, ownership, and revenue distribution of AI-generated content have become increasingly prominent, especially in the field of music creation. Traditional music revenue paths rely on platform distribution, with slow returns and opaque revenue, which also makes there are ways to create, but no way to monetize a common dilemma for creators.
To solve this pain point, Story announced that it has become an infrastructure partner of the AI-driven entertainment platform MUSIC (Virtuals ecosystem project), supporting the launch of its Bangers feature: users only need to add @musicbyvirtuals and a prompt in a hot Twitter post, and AI will automatically generate music or MVs, which will then be registered, confirmed and tokenized on the chain through Story, transforming them into tradable music IP assets.
Each IP corresponds to a token with asset attributes, with a built-in 1% transaction tax to incentivize original creators, secondary creators and disseminators; at the same time, creators can also earn income through licensing fees and derivative profit sharing. Storys full-link support enables MUSIC to achieve the conversion path from social media hot posts directly to on-chain assets for the first time, giving content instant rights confirmation and monetization capabilities.
On May 28, MUSIC officially launched the tokenized asset $DRIP of the music IP Drip Drip jointly created by top 100 DJs R 3 HAB and WUKONG, and started a 20% airdrop. Snapshots have been taken of Banger trading users, $MUSIC holders and Story active addresses.
Currently, $MUSIC already supports one-click cross-chain from Base to Story, and platform transactions use Storys native token $IP as gas. MUSIC has also cooperated with Sony Tencents joint venture label Liquid State to access more than 1,000 AI agents to promote the large-scale generation and distribution of community-driven music IP.
Aria: Targeting music IP on the blockchain and opening up the long-tail track of RWA
On-chain RWA (real world assets) continue to grow. According to rwa.xyz data, as of the time of writing, the total market value of on-chain RWA has exceeded $23 billion, a monthly increase of 6.4%. Although currently still dominated by US bonds, private credit, and commodities, franchise assets and other non-standard assets are becoming a new focus.
In recent years, music assets have gradually been favored by institutions due to their stable cash flow, significant long-tail value and high returns, and Wall Street capital has accelerated its layout: in 2021, Blackstone Group invested US$1 billion in Hipgnosis to acquire music copyrights; in the same year, KKR acquired the Kobalt music royalty portfolio for US$1.1 billion ; in 2024, Apollo provided Concord with US$850 million to support its third issuance of music asset ABS.
Aria is the core protocol in the Story ecosystem that focuses on non-standard RWA. It focuses on music assets, assetizes song publishing rights, performance rights and future royalty income, and provides users with an entry point to participate in high-potential content IP.
According to the 2025 report of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) , the annual revenue of the global music industry is approaching 30 billion US dollars, of which the income from performance rights has doubled since 2010, becoming an important source of stable cash flow. Aria also follows this trend and transforms music IP into composable and tradable on-chain financial assets.
Currently, Arias asset library covers works by top artists such as Madonna, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Selena Gomez, Maroon 5, BLACKPINK, BTS, Aespa, etc. Most of these works have passed the royalty income decay period, with an average asset age of over 4 years, stable income and low volatility. Some new works in 2024 are also included, which have growth potential.
Aria integrates publishing rights, performance rights and royalties through a portfolio model, builds a standardized asset package, and supports users to participate in early issuance with stablecoins. This music IP assetization path effectively solves the pain points of poor liquidity, opaque returns and low IP utilization of traditional music assets:
SPV architecture: put music copyrights into compliant entities on the chain, support partial tokenization and monetization, and avoid institutions being forced to sell all of them;
Real-time royalty distribution: Through smart contracts, royalty revenue can be automatically distributed to relevant parties, eliminating traditional distribution delays and intermediary losses;
Programmable IP licensing: allows secondary creation and flexible commercial use, releasing long-tail value (such as remix, film and television soundtracks, etc.).
In the future, Aria will achieve liquidity, staking and lending through RWIP tokens. The current portfolio is expected to have an annualized return of 8-9%, and is expected to return to the long-term average of 4-5% within three to five years.
Based on the Story protocol, Aria realizes transparent asset management from off-chain to on-chain, injecting a new content-driven path into the Web3 RWA market and injecting new vitality of financialization into music IP.
In addition, Aria launched a points system in early May to provide exclusive incentives for OG users, and opened $IP airdrops on May 22. Users who participate in Aria Premiere Launch will receive IPRWA tokens $APL starting June 25.
Emergence: AI + blockchain, reshaping the production logic of franchise IP
In the traditional entertainment industry, IP is usually dominated by centralized teams, and contributors find it difficult to obtain sustained returns. Emergence, a sci-fi project in the Story ecosystem, is trying to break this pattern.
Jointly launched by Incention and Story, Emergence is an open, decentralized narrative sandbox led by legendary screenwriter David S. Goyer (representative works include The Dark Knight Trilogy, Blade, Terminator and Foundation), which supports audiences, creators, developers, and even introduces AI agent ATLAS to participate in world view construction.
Its content rights confirmation, authorization and profit-sharing mechanism is completely based on Story: users leave verifiable traces of work on the chain, and the system automatically distributes revenue based on content usage to ensure sustainable returns for contributions. ATLAS plays the role of writer partner in it, not only generating texts and plots, but also organizing interactions, integrating clues, and dynamically expanding settings, becoming an important part of building a worldview.
Earlier this month, Emergence officially launched the Codex quest , which encourages users to create characters, artifacts, myths, and locations. As of writing, users have generated more than 30,000 characters, settings, and worldviews. These user creations will be officially incorporated into the Emergence universe after community voting and Gaoye review. As the sci-fi universe ecosystem gradually unfolds, the corresponding creators will receive continuous rewards.
As an on-chain decentralized laboratory that integrates AI collaboration and IP market mechanisms, it provides a new multi-agent collaboration paradigm for Web3 native IP development.
The Composable Future of AI + RWA + IP
In MUSIC, hot posts become assets; in Aria, songs become bonds; and in Emergence, AI and humans co-create content civilization. Supporting all of this is the programmable IP infrastructure provided by Story - the underlying bridge connecting AI, RWA and IP.
Currently, Story is holding the first global online Buildathon of the year - Surreal World Assets , focusing on the innovation direction of IP × AI × RWA, supported by Pantera Capital, OKX Ventures, Polychain and other top crypto VCs. The event is open to developers and non-technical participants at the same time. The winning projects will have the opportunity to obtain investor roadshow opportunities and access to ecological resources, with a total prize pool of US$55,000.
