S.Y. Lee: How Story Protocol Is Leading Crypto x AI

Transcript

There are companies, a category of companies that actually has authorized IPs and be able to make derivatives on top of this IP with AI remixing. >> How that happened? What was your thought process when you had the idea you wanted to build this out? Is there any that stick out to you that are doing things a little bit different, a little bit more unique? >> Welcome back to the rollup. We are your hosts. I'm Andy. I'm Robbie. And this is your home to learn from the biggest guests, the brightest minds at the tip of innovation. Our goal is to help spread the collective knowledge of everyone in our community. We are breaking crypto out of its echo chamber and taking it to the real world.

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>> Big news, huh? OKX Ventures story. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Tell us about that. What's the uh actually just kind of walk us through h how that happened? What was your thought process when you had the idea? You wanted to build this out, build this uh you know $10 million fund with them. what's going on. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I think really important thing about the success of a chain is having uh successful protocols being built on top of that ecosystem applications and um we wanted to find a partner who had a really good liquidity distribution uh that could uh that kind of is aligned the vision and can help us uh list the projects that are coming on top of story and is

becoming very successful. uh more in an accelerated path. Obviously, there's no guarantee and there's no promise here but you know because the OKX ventures gene uh is very very closely working collaborating together to handpick these protocols and ecosystems uh and investing together. They will have you know a more direct line uh with with with the team there. They have a massive wallet. They have a massive exchange and having that close relationship uh with between the two teams and being able to fund these companies together are is very exciting and we'll be soon I think within a month within a month announcing

um no the first investments uh from that fund but not you know so it's going to take time like two you know three four weeks but already there's a winner now >> maybe you can shout some uh some some of the your most uh favorite and exciting projects. How many out of the story ecosystem? Who are you most excited about? We've had conversations with quite a few. Wes, is there is there any that stick out to you that are doing things a little bit different, a little bit more unique? >> So, I I think there are two things uh that I'm very excited by. Uh first, I mean, oh, several, but I I'll just I would just I just want to pick out a few. First is we've been already talking about it a lot. a company called Arya

Protocol. It's an IP tokenization protocol. So IP is a massive asset class like a $70 trillion asset class. But you know it's actually everyone from Blackstone, KKR, PIM code this massive private equity or asset manager they all have a massive music catalog class. The reason is it has it gives you stable yields like treasury tails uh or real >> from royalties >> for royalties. So set 5 to 15% depending on the music asset and it's a going to be a steadily increasing asset because there are more streamers coming in from India to developing countries is always going to go increase. So it's a very very investable asset class uh that where you have a stable yield pump you

know spitting out the uh yields but also but you know there's a really good capital gain path or an exit path by these m music catalog companies from private equity funds to huge labels like UNG they want to actually buy out these uh assets. So, so that do uh very uh they gave that access uh to crypto users with stablecoin investment uh from music uh Justin Bieber to Blackpink music and all these other types of music pieces that are really really top. So, we have Taylor Swift songs, we've had um Madonna songs, right? We're going to expand that, right? they're going to be kind of announcing further 50 to 100 $150 million TVL uh with exciting labels,

exciting funds coming in. So that's I think one very very exciting protocol. Um that's own story. Uh and a second is uh there are companies a category of companies that actually has authorized IPs and be able to make derivatives on top of this IP with AI remixing. But there's a company called Abau. It's a uh they have crocs uh bombain uh they have uh advance and these IPs are registered to the blockchain. Yeah. And you with almost like your vibe coat, you actually with remixing tools, you can create derivative crux trivets uh uh you can make a

derivative shoes or derivative uh whatever you know uh uh very very easily. You be now kind of the belief here is that if you have an IP Lego piece with programmable IP rights attached with AI tools, you can make very exciting creation very easily. Back in the days, the best you can do when you have these IPs, make a fan fiction or fan art. But now you can create not only just this kind of derivative merch. We're going to have um actually vibe coded games. So we're talking to a on boarding a a Korean uh game developer called Verse 8. Actually, it allows you to create, you know, games on top of someone that's like five coded within an

hour. very high kadeli almost semi Pokemon Go level. Yeah. Very very quickly. Right. Right. Right. So we're going to be announcing showing those games how they can be created very soon. Second, third is um we are uh I mean this is kind of an alpha you know something that's going to come up come soon but we think there's a very exciting exciting space in data uh data meets AI meets uh kind of IP registration license. So all these AI model companies have insatiable demand for data. So all the model architecture

is commoditized deep sector uh uh open AI and compute is monopolized by Nvidia and it's just commodity right just if you have more money you can get it but everyone is looking especially for the physical AI model robotics models or like you know or you know kind of the models that are building on the world of atoms and bits >> uh because the data that you want for your robotics companies, you cannot just get from crawling on the web. Like it's you you're holding this cuff for like different angles for like 10 hours or you're just typing on the keyboard for 12 hours with different lighting like >> different kind of angles. This is really

hard to get. >> This is why Facebook bought. So so but also at the same time these are all private data. They want a safe IP license. >> Yeah. Like imagine you are trying to put your iPhone videos and try to someone's going to use it like there's a massive IP risk. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Right. All these things, right? >> Yeah. >> So they want like a explicit declared IP rights of this data. >> It's being trained upon for these new set of new frontier AI models beyond LLMs. And so story serving as an IP layer but also building exciting ecos having an exciting ecosystem application

that incentivizes and coordinates collection to labeling and all these things on crypto rails. >> Yep. >> Is something that we're very excited about and hopefully we can share. >> And what is that what is that one called? >> I can't go. Oh, >> so the other the the other thing that I think S why they they are getting really interested in and pushing forward on is uh >> on the on like outside of OKX but within this institutional realm of coming on and bringing their assets on chain >> onto onto story.

>> Yes. >> Uh how's what you know what's the what can you tell us about that? What's the latest update there that you're willing to share? Yeah. How those conversations been going? I I think there is a huge appetite on especially kind of the creative IP owners >> uh because uh the funding is getting more and more difficult for these IPs but they they want to utilize the crypto rails for this global financial liquidity boost traffic also.

So even memes are IPS right? Yeah. Like I I think the reason why the reason why Trump Minkorm is so successful is a it's a verified I like it's like Trump IP verified point >> right because it's Trump himself launching it's my IP >> right >> being put on >> but how is that so that's Trump but like tie us into the institutions here a bit more. >> Yeah. Yeah. So so because of that I think I think we're talking to >> Yeah. Yeah. uh uh uh very uh exciting funds which hold big music catalog or record labels. I see >> having music catalog or actually Hollywood Studios that holds mega IP but they want to actually create a spin-off

>> and can you actually launch this spin-off in a memecoin style raising money uh actually launching a coin but there's a revenue burning like if actually that IP revenue >> gets come IP revenue gets created that actually comes into buying back the token and a buy burn buyback burn style like Hyperlid does. Yeah. >> So then you have you're using this IP you not just memecoin it's an IPcoin. >> Yeah.

>> IPcoin where I'm launching as an IP owner >> and actually there's some revenue tie >> in that IP. >> Yeah. >> Innovating finance global institutional and onchain. Deep liquidity to drive capital efficiency. Now maximize yields on institutional grade liquid staking with me. unlock trillion dollars of capital via F Bitcoin. All of this secured by Mantle's treasury of billions in stables and ETH capital pools. This entire ecosystem is coordinated by a vast network of seasoned VCs that are aiming to create the next generation of banking and

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do you set your sights on what is your next what is the inspiration the motivation yeah that keeps you going and pushes you forward >> yeah so last two right before this company I've been working on a company at the intersection of storytelling mobile for eight years and I sold that company to a big Asian tech company called Cacao four years ago you know that was capitalizing on this shift to mobile mobile right uh basically everyone is going to read and consume content on mobile that content is going to be episodic by size and that's going to actually utilize uh mobile business native business model like Candy Crush where you pay microp payment per chapter per episode if you

wait it's free if you don't want to wait you pay 30 cents per chapter within app currency so that was the model but now I think there are two big angles here at the intersection that was an IP company IP and uh a new technology. I think the new technology is crypto and AON right IP and crypto I think crypto is best at uh financial rails like global financial rails investing trading right and speculator so that bet within the IP space that made most sense is IP RWA you know so that's why I have area we have area we're trying to bring more and more I more stuff at the intersection of IP

and Fondness The other very interesting thing within the IP vertical that intersects with AI, the biggest gring subcategory of IP is I think data sets that are needed for AI models. >> And so I call it like real world data IP, real world data, right? that that data uh the first generation of data that was sucked in by AI model companies are web web content to be honest they're not uh they're not very respective of respective of IP rights >> no >> they just gobbled up the internet >> they just completely over IP rights ownership rights around this IP

and they just like they just gobbled it up and they just spit out bunch of IP infringing content you know Even like a Studio Jubilee owner should get some attribution or guess some's revenue off of all the SP Studio Jubilee, you know, created what was fire content, right? Remix. Yeah. Remixes that are coming out. >> I don't think they got anything right. No. Yeah. But okay, that trade we want to fix as much as we can. But I think the more also interesting feel that we can capture right away is now all these companies from Tesla Optimus to 11 L they're like they're guarding

for real world data to train their model like >> yes >> point of view egocentric video footage of yourself everything >> your voice all these things and they need like 12 dialects 20 dialects for 11 laps all their thing They're they are looking for those data. They want it to be IP safe. >> Yeah. >> Explicit consent that can be put on blockchain. So those things I think if someone who brings what scale has done onchain especially now that scale is getting rescended all the contracts by other competitive AI companies but also using almost like exit infinity >> style uh crypto incentives to bootstrap all the data collection from different

parts of the world including developing world. I think it's going to be a massive opportunity and make it IP safe and IP verified. So that one is super exciting for uh for me and the company and the story team because that is a that is a that is an opportunity coming out of the new AI trend. So the crypto trend AI trend and the what crypto and AI can do well what is that intersection between crypto AI and IP. So that's an that that is that's keeping up keeping us up at night and that's what we're focused on. That's our IP RWA. That's actually data layer for AI companies using crypto incentives and crypto immutable blockchain that's actually

declaring IP rights on that. >> Yeah, that's why man. Um really appreciate you joining us and and having this conversation looking forward to the next couple months with what you guys do. >> Yeah, we'll we'll have more announcements coming from probably like >> mid mid to late July and then maybe we can catch up. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, man. I I mean I'll be I'll be around at the uh Korean conference in September. >> Yeah. Well, >> I hope that you're there. >> Of course. We'll we'll be doing some exciting things there. >> Awesome. >> Awesome. >> All right. Thank you, sir. >> Worth to share. Thank you.