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Case Study: Aria on Story
Story
28 March 2025
Intellectual Property Is Intellectual Gold
From the songs we stream to the shows we binge-watch, intellectual property (IP) shapes our cultural experiences and drives entire industries. Yet, despite being one of the most valuable asset classes in the world, IP remains locked in outdated systems—until now.
Taking a real-world asset (RWA) and transforming it into a virtual, decentralized token is nothing new. Countless Web3 projects have tried—more or less successfully—to tokenize assets like real estate, commodities, financial instruments, or supply chain goods. However, the most significant RWA has yet to be tokenized: IP, a trillion-dollar asset class, arguably the biggest in the world.
The market cap of intangible assets is estimated at a whopping $61 trillion, more than ten times the size of the current cryptocurrency market. The best part? IP is not only an immensely valuable asset—it’s part of our popular culture in the form of art, movies, music, and much more. With the advent of AI, IP’s value is poised to skyrocket: it’s the central resource that large AI models train on. The ability to leverage IP as a financial instrument builds the foundation for a new, flourishing IP economy.
Now’s the Time for Tokenized IP
Blockchain innovations have already disrupted the status quo:
- Bitcoin competes with gold and money as the standard for storing and transferring value.
- Blockchain L1s and L2s compete with centralized platforms as the standard for executing transactions and events.
- DeFi tokens compete with equities, debt, and financial derivatives as the new financialization standard of tangible monetary value.
So, what about IP? In Web2, the financial instrument that governs IP is the legal document. US-American IP value captured in documentation alone is estimated at $7.8 trillion, spanning patents, trademarks, and copyrights across industries like tech, healthcare, manufacturing, entertainment, and more.
- A groundbreaking drug invention? That’s IP in a legal document.
- A generalized AI model capable of economic work? That’s IP in a legal document.
- A global hit song? That’s IP in a legal document.
While legal documents hold all the rights and value-creation mechanisms of IP, the process is inherently inefficient. To monetize IP today, two parties and their lawyers manually agree on a custom financial scheme. This results in IP being monetized only once, and only within the limits of that specific contract. No one else can create value from the IP until a new agreement is manually drafted for another situation.
"Intellectual property is one of the most culturally resonant and economically powerful asset classes in the world. From music catalogs and film rights to research and AI training data, IP holds massive latent value which can be tapped with frictionless licensing, co-creation, and hyper-financialization.
We’re building the rails for IP to exist in an economic superstructure, where music rights, film IP, and foundational research can flow through markets as transparently and programmatically as stablecoins. If we succeed, cultural and scientific assets won’t sit idle in legal vaults. They’ll be structured, revenue-generating assets accessible to everyone."
David Kostiner, Co-Founding Partner and Chief IP Officer.
Story and Aria are changing this paradigm. Instead of competing with legal documents, Story builds on them, turning the current P2P framework into a P2Everyone environment. By tokenizing IP, Story ensures that with permission, any IP asset can be open for others to license, trade, and monetize, all while preserving the legal protections, attribution, and rights of its owner. This creates a superior, open model for the financialization of IP value, unlocking untapped opportunities for IP holders, investors, creators, and global fans alike.
Aria: Bridging the Gap Between IP and Finance
Imagine owning a fraction of the royalties from an iconic music catalog or song, and being able to co-create using the original components of iconic works. As a fan or investor, you could purchase a tokenized share of these IP assets, earning royalties from streams and licensing deals, and this not only on its current usage but on any derivative creation based on those IPs. This is precisely what Aria does—transforming IP into liquid, tradeable assets on the blockchain.
Aria is the first protocol focused on tokenizing intellectual property real-world assets and bringing them on-chain in a fungible form. These assets—streaming catalogs, sync rights, branded IP—can generate real-world revenue and now, imbued with smart contracts for composable, on-chain utility.
Aria bridges the gap between IP and financial ecosystems, unlocking opportunities for IP owners, IP consumers, and investors alike. By tokenizing IP assets, Aria creates a decentralized, transparent market for IP previously inaccessible to the public.
With Story as its foundation, Aria introduces intellectual property real-world asset (IPRWA) tokens, unlocking liquidity for previously illiquid markets and enabling fractional ownership. This innovation is not only about trading IP but also about engaging with it in entirely new ways.
Through tokenization on Aria, IPRWA becomes:
- Fractionalized: Anyone can gain exposure to top-tier assets
- Revenue-Linked: Tied to traditional sources like royalties and licensing
- Programmable: enabling permissioned creators to legally use IP to create derivative works with smart contracts managing access to IP, attribution, and monetization
"Story is the critical foundation that makes tokenized IP viable. Its infrastructure bridges legal enforceability and smart contract automation, allowing us to bring real-world IP assets on-chain with integrity. Without Story’s programmable licensing and authenticity layers, building Aria would not have been possible."
David Kostiner, Co-Founding Partner and Chief IP Officer.
Trailblazing the Future of the IP Economy
Aria’s mission goes beyond tokenizing IP; it envisions a world where cultural assets are decentralized and democratized.
- Fans and investors can turn their passion into financial returns, owning a stake in the cultural works they love.
- IP owners, innovators, creators, and researchers are compensated fairly and empowered to build deeper connections with their audiences.
- Investors access a vibrant, emerging market with unprecedented transparency, liquidity, and potential.
- AI training and licensing can now happen programmatically, driving new revenue streams.
With IPFi (IP Finance) as the superior ecosystem for IP value capture, distribution, and financialization, Aria, built on Story, is redefining the global IP economy. By removing inefficiencies and leveraging blockchain, Story replaces outdated P2P IP monetization models with a seamless, open standard that directs more capital into creativity.
Programmable Rights: Composable Creativity, Not Legal Bottlenecks
Aria expands Story’s base-layer vision to support programmable rights: on-chain conditions that define how IP can be used, licensed, remixed, or monetized. This way, Aria not only enables creators to retain control of their work while unlocking new income streams, but also permissioned collaborators gain legal, licensed access to remix and build on IP, while investors can earn more revenue over time as derivative assets are created and monetized.
This unlocks a permissioned remix economy with built-in attribution, automated royalty distribution, and composable creativity governed by smart contracts, not legal bottlenecks. Royalties will be credited to the applicable tokens, which are allocated amongst the original IP holders, investors, and the collaborators creating derivative works.
Programmable rights are flexible by design, bespoke and dynamic by asset, depending on what the rightsholder chooses to enable. Once included, these rights can generate royalties across a wide range of environments, from Web2 (e.g., merchandise, digital distribution, film, and TV), Web3 (e.g., on-chain games, digital collectibles, and digital assets), and AI, for example with controlled attribution and usage in generative tools and emerging platforms.
Coda: Why IP is the Next Frontier
IP has long been locked in legal contracts and corporate silos, limiting its potential. Aria and Story unlock the true value of intellectual property by making it accessible, tradeable, and programmable. Whether you’re a creator, a fan, or an investor, the future of IP is now open to everyone—and it’s powered by Story.
Ready to be part of the IP revolution? Visit https://ariaprotocol.xyz/
