Interview with Story Protocol Co-Founder: The Multi-Trillion-Dollar IP Market Awaits Transformation
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Interview with Story Protocol Co-Founder: The Multi-Trillion-Dollar IP Market Awaits Transformation
We are not the programmable intellectual property layer of blockchain; we are the programmable intellectual property layer of the internet.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsInterviewee: Jason Zhao, Co-founder of Story Protocol
Interview and article: Wendy, Foresight News
Originally published on June 4, 2024
Since Satoshi Nakamoto embedded a front-page headline from The Times into Bitcoin’s genesis block, the development of blockchain technology has remained closely tied to media. In every bull cycle within crypto since then, efforts have emerged to reshape the media industry using blockchain.
During the last cycle, these efforts gained particular attention amid the rise of products like NFTs. Traditional Hollywood giants such as NBC Universal and Disney significantly increased their investments in the metaverse, while native Web3 content projects attracted fierce interest from top-tier venture capital firms. Among them, Mirror.xyz stands out as especially representative. The project vividly embodies Chris Dixon, a general partner at a16z Crypto, who summarized the three waves of the internet as "read, write, own." He recently released a book titled *Read, Write, Own: How to Build the Next Internet*, named after this very concept.
However, as with all innovation, attempts to reshape the media landscape with blockchain have faced numerous challenges. In early May this year, Mirror.xyz announced it was sold to its competitor Paragraph—a blockchain-based content publishing platform backed by venture capital firms including Union Square, Coinbase, and Binance Labs. The transaction amount was not disclosed.
"Even though Mirror had to sell, they're still fulfilling their mission," Jason Zhao, co-founder of Story Protocol, told Foresight News. "We deeply admire Mirror—they were an early source of inspiration for what we’re building at Story."
Funded and led by a16z Crypto, Story Protocol aims to build upon Mirror’s foundation by introducing "programmable IP" to create a new native IP paradigm for the next generation of the internet, reshaping the multi-trillion-dollar global intellectual property (IP) market.
Launched during a bear market yet drawing significant attention, Story Protocol has raised over $54 million in funding to date. How will it solve the widespread adoption challenges in the content industry? And how will it respond to the disruptive impact of generative AI on the global IP market? To address these questions, Jason Zhao, co-founder of Story Protocol, sat down with Foresight News in Silicon Valley for the following conversation.
Foresight News: On your website, Story Protocol describes its vision as becoming the “native IP infrastructure of the internet.” Could you elaborate on what you mean by “native IP infrastructure”?
Jason Zhao: Our core belief is that whenever there's a technological shift, new demands emerge for intellectual property (IP) and creative economies.
For example, the first intellectual property laws and copyright laws were established after the printing press was invented. Before that, protecting creative works was easy—because reproducing a book was extremely costly, requiring manual copying. But with the printing press, anyone could duplicate works infinitely and at low cost, so creators needed legal protection against unauthorized copying. Without such protection, there would be no incentive to create.
This system worked well for centuries, but now we are entering a fundamentally different world. First, the internet gives everyone global distribution. It's now effortless to reach millions via TikTok, Reddit, or Twitter. Second, generative AI has turned everyone into a creator—you can generate Hollywood-quality content in minutes. Now, anyone can use AI to produce high-quality content and distribute it worldwide. This is radically different from the era of the printing press.
Yet our intellectual property systems haven’t evolved—they’re essentially the same laws from hundreds of years ago. We believe blockchain infrastructure can help us track ownership, coordinate incentives, licensing, and royalties at internet speed and scale—something paper-based legal systems simply cannot do today. That’s what we mean by infrastructure.
Foresight News: We’ll come back to generative AI shortly. For now, let’s focus on the relationship between IP and blockchain. Since blockchain’s inception, there have been many attempts in this space. During the 2016–17 cycle, numerous news archive-related projects emerged; in 2021–22, representative projects like Mirror.xyz appeared. Yet most failed to gain traction—many news-focused ones shut down, and Mirror was recently sold to Paragraph. A common challenge they faced was adoption. After all, more than 99% of copyright-related activities still happen off-chain. Who will pay for your product or service? How do you break beyond the limited crypto market? And how do you bridge Web2 and Web3?
Jason Zhao: You're right—many pioneering projects struggled to establish sustainable business models in publishing. That said, we greatly respect Mirror; they were an early inspiration for what we’re doing at Story. I know Dennis, Mirror’s founder (Denis Nazarov)—he’s a great person. Even though they had to sell, Mirror is still operating. In my view, they’re still fulfilling their mission. So Mirror took an important, necessary first step. Story aims to go further.
Many early efforts in content focused on putting media on-chain. They asked: Can we put text on-chain? Images? Can we put everything on-chain? But they didn’t put the “rights” on-chain alongside the media.
Intellectual property isn’t just the media itself—it’s not just an image, but the image plus all associated rights and rules governing how others can use it. That’s what IP truly is. So we believe what matters isn’t just putting media files on-chain, but ensuring every piece of online content has software-defined rules specifying how others can license, remix, and expand that IP.
So you can have both media and rights on-chain. Any creator, app, or developer can read these rights. If they agree, they can immediately monetize and build on that IP. Right now, if I love an IP online, I don’t know how to get permission to use it—I might have to email someone, hire lawyers, and pay high fees. With Story, you can not only consume content on-chain, but instantly understand how to use it, remix it, or combine it with other content. We turn media into Lego blocks for the IP world—modular, remixable, composable.
Mirror took the first step—we’re extending it. We’re putting rights on-chain to make IP programmable. That’s our vision, and our key differentiator.
Your second question—about bridging Web2 and Web3—is excellent. First, we’re partnering with many Web2 companies. One of them, Magma, has 2.5 million users—all Web2 users with no blockchain experience.
We’ve built an API that abstracts away wallets and gas fees entirely. Our belief is clear: we’re not building a programmable IP layer for blockchains—we’re building it for the entire internet.
Indeed, 99% of high-quality content today is in Web2. But when YouTube launched, 99% of quality content was offline. Now, virtually all premium content is online—even traditional studios like Hollywood release on YouTube and Netflix. So any new content paradigm must empower a new class of creators. You can’t rely solely on existing elites—figures like Spielberg or MrBeast are already well-served by the current system and have little incentive to switch.
But thousands of creators want to monetize their IP and currently lack the tools to do so. They’ll create entirely new, crypto-native, Story-native IPs. We estimate such IPs might represent 1% this year, 2% next year. But in 5 to 10 years, this could become the standard way to create IP: community-driven, open-source, on-chain creation.
Foresight News: You mentioned YouTube—on Web2, platforms like YouTube often create win-win relationships with creators. The dynamic between creators and audiences is nuanced—sometimes, content spreads precisely because some IP protections are relaxed. So, who will drive the adoption of on-chain IP—or on-chain IP attribution?
Jason Zhao: Yes, relinquishing certain rights can be beneficial. The reason Hollywood is struggling today is because they keep their IP locked in closed gardens, isolated silos. No one else can contribute or benefit. So companies must spend heavily on advertising to promote their IP. IP today lacks network effects—the more IP there is, the more you have to spend on marketing just to stand out.
This problem will only worsen as generative AI enables everyone to create content. So how do you differentiate? How do you capture attention? You need to turn IP into a network. And that requires involving others in the community.
The whole idea behind Story is: can we allow others to build and profit from your IP—while also rewarding the original creator—so we can build an IP graph where IP gains network effects similar to Facebook?
Today, three of the top 100 most trafficked websites are fan fiction sites. Millions of people spend millions of hours each year writing fan fiction—most of which gets little readership and generates no income. And when they do attract attention, original creators often issue takedown notices.
There are so many people living in this world of derivative creation, yet they have no voice. I believe these people will adopt Story. They’ll expand IPs and ask their favorite creators to publish on Story—because it benefits creators by tapping into untapped creativity. For fans themselves, it offers a chance to contribute to beloved works and potentially earn income.
Foresight News: What’s your strategy for driving adoption? You have many advisors from Hollywood, but there are rumors you’ll start by collaborating with Web3 IP giants.
Jason Zhao: We’re fortunate to have a strong advisory board from Hollywood—that definitely sets us apart from many crypto projects. At the same time, we’re pragmatic. We’re building a crypto company, and we genuinely believe organic, bottom-up IP development will unlock superpowers.
I think crypto-native creators, crypto-native IPs, and crypto-native projects will be the first to crack this code—because they’re the ones without power in the current system, but who will gain voice and ability to grow large IP ecosystems on Story.
I believe in 10 years, the next *Avengers* movie will be born on Story. I believe the distinction between Web2 and Web3 will disappear. So for us, it’s not necessarily about going through Web2—we must go through Web3. The Web2/Web3 divide is mostly a technical distinction people make. Strategically, we look for those who understand our vision and feel overlooked by the current system.
We aim to empower them. Many come from Web2. Not everything in Hollywood is working smoothly—there are many issues. So many Hollywood creators are excited about our tech. We won’t reject them for not being crypto-native—we welcome them.
So it’s really not about Web2 vs. Web3. It’s about whether you understand this new creative paradigm and are willing to work with us. That’s our strategy. Many are crypto-native, but I also believe many in Web2 grasp the same principles. As I said, we strive to enable even non-blockchain users to think about IP in a crypto-native way.
Foresight News: Can you share any details about collaborations with major IPs?
Jason Zhao: On big IPs, I can’t disclose much. But I can say we’re in conversations with many top NFT projects, as well as some of the most renowned creators in Hollywood. I can confirm we’re working with both traditional creators and crypto-native IPs in close collaboration.
Foresight News: You mentioned partnerships with NFT projects. The overall NFT market has remained relatively cold this cycle. Do you think a project like Story Protocol can help reinvigorate the NFT market?
Jason Zhao: Absolutely. The original vision of NFTs was to give IP to communities, creating community-owned IP. The problem, as I mentioned earlier, is that we didn’t truly put IP on-chain—we only put the media file on-chain. But what if you actually want to monetize your Azuki, Pudgy, or any other project? Say I want to create a comic using my Azuki and your Pudgy. In today’s Web3 world, I’d have to read and understand the Azuki license, then read your Pudgy license. Then I’d need to contact you, negotiate terms—do we split revenue 50/50 or 70/30? Then we’d need lawyers to draft a legally binding contract. Only then could we proceed—and someone would have to draw the comic, trusting the other party to pay per contract.
So essentially, to do anything with on-chain IP, you fall back on traditional legal systems. It’s like wanting to swap tokens on Uniswap but having to call your bank first, find another person online who wants to trade, have them call their bank, and then complete the transaction. At that point, you might as well just trade in real life or off-chain.
So I believe there’s massive friction in using IP today because it’s not programmable—it’s just a static pointer to a media file. What we can do for NFT projects is help fulfill their original compelling vision: putting full IP rights on-chain. For these projects, we’re enabling their holders and teams to easily monetize and use IP with just a click.
Foresight News: Does that mean rewriting smart contracts?
Jason Zhao: No. Our infrastructure is backward compatible with ERC721. They just need to attach a Story-linked account to their NFT. Essentially, any NFT compliant with ERC721—whether existing or new—we can work with.
Foresight News: There was also a widely discussed trend around CC0—an alternative approach.
Jason Zhao: CC0 is indeed cool—we can support CC0 on Story.
What Story does is give creators choice in setting terms. We’re a neutral protocol. Some creators may prefer CC0; others may want stronger IP protection. We’re building a tool so others can decide how to enforce their rights. CC0 is just one end of the spectrum—the other being today’s Disney, highly closed. Over time, the market will decide.
Foresight News: Regarding generative AI, which you’ve mentioned repeatedly. It’s advancing rapidly and will certainly disrupt the current IP market. In such a revolutionary media environment, how does Story Protocol position itself?
Jason Zhao: Generative AI is transforming the entire creative landscape. This is something we’ve thought deeply about.
Most teams approaching us to build on Story are AI projects—because this is a huge issue in AI. Look at The New York Times suing ChatGPT for using their data without compensation. I believe if this continues, creators will lose motivation to create.
If people don’t pay for creators’ IP, AI models will eventually run out of training data. So we see this as a critical problem—not just for AI, but for creators too.
Our solution is building a way for creators to monetize their IP as training data in AI. If you’re a creator with a unique art style, or a musician with a distinct voice, you can store it on Story Protocol. Then set terms for how AI can train on your voice—for example, “Anyone can use my voice in AI training, but I get 50% royalties.”
These rules can be automatically read by any software, AI model, or individual. Story can track usage. So we’re building an AI monetization layer for creators—to make AI sustainable. That’s our view on AI, and a core part of our vision.
Foresight News: Why do you believe blockchain is the best way to solve these problems? Several of your co-founders have strong backgrounds in Web2 IP and content. You yourself worked at OpenAI. What drove you to enter Web3 and pursue Web3 solutions to these challenges?
Jason Zhao: I believe blockchain is the best approach. First, it’s global. Second, it’s trustless.
We’re building an IP system where people place their valuable creative works. Imagine if we could shut down the entire system the way Twitter shut down its API in the 2010s. Back then, many developers were building creative front-ends using Twitter’s API. When Twitter realized they couldn’t monetize ads on those apps, they shut down the API. Many businesses built on Twitter vanished overnight. So if we want to build a global IP layer for the internet, it must belong to the internet—not to a single company. Even though we’re a company building this layer, it should be a public good.
Blockchain is the only way.
As for how I entered crypto: I worked at DeepMind (Google’s AI lab) for two years, focusing on commercialization—taking research and turning it into new products.
I entered crypto for two reasons. One was research-related. I found that in crypto, the pipeline from research to production is much faster. Within two months of a whitepaper launch, protocols appear. Then people start building on them. It’s open source. People fork it. They attempt vampire attacks. They try to break it. It’s like an organic, open playground—evolution and iteration happen incredibly fast. That’s exciting. In AI, only five to ten large companies have enough data and compute to conduct research. It’s slow and closed.
The second reason: I studied philosophy in college, especially political philosophy. Crypto’s original technology began for a deeply philosophical reason—very libertarian, aiming to free money from governments. I found that fascinating. As I got deeper into crypto, I saw discussions about DAOs and governance experiments that felt almost socialist or communist—everyone should own the network. It’s like a cooperative: everyone using the network should be rewarded, not just be users, but owners. Of course, crypto also has a strong capitalist element due to trading.
So I find it exciting that such diverse political philosophies can thrive on one technology—like a political mirror. No matter your beliefs, you can see blockchain as a tool to realize your vision. That’s truly inspiring.
But at the same time, I looked around and saw no non-financial infrastructure in crypto—no way to build a creative ecosystem. Most people who aren’t into DeFi or degens don’t think about Robinhood or stock trading. They think about culture—places like TikTok and Netflix where people spend time. So I wanted to build technology to create a new parallel creative ecosystem, not just a financial one, to serve the mainstream. That’s why we turned to blockchain.
Foresight News: Your website says you’re hiring a DeFi lead. Why?
Jason Zhao: Yes, we’re hiring a DeFi lead. I believe the most interesting aspect of crypto so far has been its ability to provide a global, immutable, decentralized financial ecosystem.
When building an ecosystem on Story, we want to help creators monetize—we want to create a new creative economy. But that’s impossible without the right financial infrastructure on Story. So we see room not only for traditional financial channels already built in crypto, but entirely new ways to treat IP as an asset that can plug into DeFi. We call this IPFi. For example, IP is a valuable real-world asset—potentially generating royalty streams that can be used as collateral in DeFi protocols, or IP being tokenized and securitized. I believe these are exciting innovations. We want to explore how IP can be further monetized and made liquid through existing DeFi protocols, and also build entirely new DeFi or IPFi protocols that leverage Story derivatives to offer creators new monetization methods and fans new ways to experience IP.
So yes, this is absolutely a priority. The DeFi lead’s role is to build this financial ecosystem on Story.
Foresight News: Do you have a timeline for mainnet launch or token airdrop?
Jason Zhao: We haven’t announced anything about mainnet, and we currently have no plans regarding airdrops. Right now, we’re focused on rolling out more test versions. We’re racing to build something people can use as soon as possible. But we’re still in testing phase.
Foresight News: Can you share updates on team growth? Your site shows 12 open positions.
Jason Zhao: At Story, we’re building much of the technology from the ground up while simultaneously cultivating an ecosystem where other entrepreneurs can build real businesses on top of Story. So we’re juggling heavy workloads across tech, marketing, ecosystem, and design.
Of course, we need a strong team to pull this off.
We currently have about 25 people, and may add another 5 to 10 this year. We aim to keep the team lean. Our hiring philosophy is simple: only hire the top 0.1% talent. This means recruiting can be difficult—there simply aren’t that many people in that category. But we’d rather leave a role open and let team members take on extra work until we find the perfect fit. Our hiring process is extremely rigorous, and we’re excited to grow. At the same time, our principle is that everyone carries immense responsibility—there are no redundant roles. Every role is critical.
In terms of priorities, we’re focused on several areas:
First, building the tech stack. The protocol is currently in test phase and requires extensive auditing. We’re incorporating substantial feedback from over 30 partners integrating with the protocol. Hundreds of developers send us feedback weekly—much of which needs engineering effort. We’re also building deeper infrastructure to support the protocol. We’ll have more announcements on this soon. So we’re doing intensive work to strengthen the protocol. Tech is clearly a top priority—as reflected in our job postings.
Second, building a strong developer community. We want anyone who wants to build on Story to be able to launch an app within minutes. We’re building extensive tools—not just documentation, but SDKs and ultra-simple quick-start apps. People should be able to copy code and begin immediately. I’m personally involved in ecosystem development. Finally, we’re doing significant product work—because in any ecosystem, you need a block explorer. You need a user-friendly way to browse IP and let creators register their IP. So we’re building public-good product infrastructure to support creators and other builders in the ecosystem.
You can see this is a multidimensional challenge. We have multiple priorities, but technology, ecosystem, and product are the three core pillars of the company.
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