Lee Seung-yoon, CEO of Story "South Korea will become an IP finance hub...building a global tokenization infrastructure"

Lee Seung-yoon, CEO of Story (STORY), emphasized, "South Korea is the most intellectual property (IP)-friendly country in the world and at the same time AI- and crypto-friendly," adding, "At the point where IP, AI, and blockchain converge, South Korea will become the center of global innovation."

At the 'Origin Summit' held on the 23rd at Anderson C. Seongsu in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, Lee said in his keynote speech, "South Korea is a content powerhouse known to the world," and added, "From 'Squid Game,' which recorded Netflix's highest viewership, to 'Baby Shark,' which recorded the most views worldwide, and K-pop groups BTS and BLACKPINK — all came from Korea."

He said, "We signed an exclusive partnership with the Seoul Exchange, which holds an RWA (real-world asset tokenization) license that only a few domestic entities possess, opening a legal path for Korean investors to trade IP assets," adding, "We will expand IP finance and data tokenization infrastructure from Korea to the world."

However, there is a structural problem in which AI trains on creators' data without paying fair compensation. Lee proposed 'IP tokenization' as Story's solution. The idea is to make IP a liquid asset like stocks or tokens and enable anyone to invest and trade via blockchain. Citing the music copyright fund 'ARIA,' he said, "By tokenizing song catalogs, investors are earning 7~12% annual returns, and early participants have recorded annual returns of up to 70%."

He also emphasized, "We programmed IP terms into smart contracts to automate copyright, royalties, and license rules," adding, "Through this, creators can freely expand their IP globally and receive compensation from derivative works without a lawyer."

He said K-content and real-world data will be core expansion axes of the Story ecosystem. He said, "Korean webtoon hits like 'Solo Leveling' are onboarding to the Story chain and are reviewing issuing IP-based meme coins, and Barunson, the production company of the film 'Parasite,' is preparing a remix short-form app." He added, "We have also formed a partnership with Asia's largest music fund that manages large music catalogs such as BTS and BLACKPINK."

Story is expanding beyond entertainment into the AI training data market. Lee said, "Robots and AI need massive video and audio data to operate in the real world," explaining, "Story operates a data layer 'Sida(Sida)' that rewards anyone who uploads voice or video with instant stablecoins or tokens using crypto incentives." He added, "Already more than 800,000 data items are uploaded daily, and over 400,000 participants worldwide are active."