A blockchain venture that once set out to overhaul how intellectual property is owned and traded online has abandoned that mission and rebuilt itself around artificial intelligence. Story Protocol has rebranded as Data Network, now sitting under a new umbrella called The DATA Foundation, with everything pointed at the data that trains AI systems.
The relaunch comes with two fresh products. One is Trace, an on-chain registry built to record AI training data. The other is an integration with Kled, an opt-in marketplace where individuals can choose to contribute their own human data. The team insists that its earlier years chasing the IP problem were not a dead end.
"2025 wasn't wasted," Andrea Muttoni, CEO of the Data Foundation, wrote on X. "It gave us lots of signals and learnings."
The sharpest of those signals, according to Muttoni, came from Poseidon, an AI data processing project the team worked on that went on to raise $15 million from a16z.
From IP to a "trust layer" for AI
The foundation framed the switch as a clean break. Story is now The DATA Foundation, the $IP token is now $DATA, and the Story Network has become the DATA Network, which it says is already tracking more than one billion data records. Its stated goal is to become the trust layer for all AI training data.
Muttoni argued the demand made the choice obvious. "The answer became unambiguous: the form of IP pulling hardest was AI training data," he said. "Labs have effectively run out of internet to scrape. What remains is either expensive and bespoke, or legally risky and undocumented."
Data Network wants to close that gap by bringing data processing, sourcing and verification together in one place. "No company can answer all three of these questions today," he said. "That's the gap we have been positioned to fill since day one, and that is the problem we are now dedicating our lives to solving."
What the rebrand means for the token
As part of the move, the Story Protocol token (IP) is converting into the Data Network token (DATA). The swap happens at a 1:1 ratio and requires no action from existing IP holders.
DATA, which climbed as high as $14.78 back when it traded as IP, was recently changing hands at $0.349, up roughly 14% over the previous 24 hours. Even with that gain, it remains close to 98% below the record high it set last September. The latest bounce also follows a 25% recovery from an all-time low of $0.275 hit earlier this month.
"We've made our bet, and are fortunate to have amazing launch partners to validate our product-market fit and shape our product trajectory," Muttoni said. "Now it's all about scaling and execution."
