Story Protocol co-founder S.Y. Lee said the decision to delay the project’s first major IP token unlock until August is intended to give the network more time to build adoption, arguing that onchain revenue is not an appropriate metric for an intellectual-property and AI data blockchain.
The six-month delay extends lockups for team and investor tokens as Story shifts away from a general IP registry toward licensing human-generated datasets for artificial-intelligence training. Story Protocol is a blockchain focused on recording ownership, provenance and usage rights for intellectual property.
In an interview with CoinDesk, Lee cited Worldcoin’s 2024 decision to extend investor and team lockups from three to five years as a precedent. That move reduced near-term token supply and was framed as extending development runway, with the token posting double-digit gains shortly after the announcement. Story is applying the same logic, Lee said.
“If we were all mercenary, we would have wanted a shorter lockup,” Lee said, adding that the extension reflects long-term commitment rather than distress.
Concerns around Story’s revenue have centered on its onchain activity. Data from DeFiLlama shows the network’s daily revenue peaked at about $43,000 in September 2025 and is currently zero. Lee said those figures understate the project’s progress because most monetization is expected to occur offchain through licensing agreements.
Lee described gas fees as a lagging indicator for a network designed to establish IP rights before generating revenue. “We intentionally put our chain gas fee pretty low. We’re more of an IP chain,” he said. “You may not see the type of revenue stream that you’re looking for like a DeFi chain.”
Instead, Story is focused on embedding ownership terms, usage rights and royalty splits for datasets and AI models into smart contracts. The shift moves the project away from tokenized media and collectibles and toward what Lee described as “unscrapable” human-contributed data, such as multilingual voice samples and first-person video.
The transition delays visible onchain income, as much of the expected value is tied to enterprise licensing deals rather than retail transaction fees. Lee compared the timeline to his previous Web2 startup experience, which resulted in a $440 million exit in 2021, noting that it took years for revenue to materialize.
For token holders, the immediate effect is slower expansion of circulating supply while the team seeks to demonstrate traction in AI data partnerships and rights-cleared dataset collection. Whether the strategy ultimately produces a sustainable business remains uncertain, but Lee said extending vesting schedules is preferable to accelerating liquidity in a weak market.
“The best founders, the best teams, the best companies usually do it for a decade plus,” Lee said. “We’re in it for the long term and longer innings.”
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