Story Protocol Becomes Data Network Amid AI Training Shift

Story Protocol Rebrands to Data Network, Pivots Focus to AI Training Data

Story Protocol, the decentralized network initially conceived to transform the intellectual property sector, has undergone a significant rebranding to Data Network, signaling a strategic shift towards artificial intelligence.

The transition is marked by the introduction of Trace, an on-chain registry specifically designed for AI training data, and an integration with Kled, a marketplace for opt-in human data. Despite its previous endeavors in the IP space, the company’s leadership asserts that this work was not in vain.

“2025 wasn’t wasted,” stated Andrea Muttoni, CEO of the Data Foundation, in a post on X. “It provided us with numerous signals and valuable learnings.”

Muttoni elaborated that the most compelling signal emerged from Poseidon, an AI data processing project the company was involved with, which subsequently secured $15 million in funding from a16z.

“The answer became unambiguous: the form of IP proving most in demand was AI training data,” Muttoni explained. “Laboratories have effectively exhausted the readily available internet for scraping. What remains is either prohibitively expensive and custom-made, or legally precarious and undocumented.”

Data Network aims to address this challenge by consolidating data processing, sourcing, and verification into a single platform.

“No single company can currently address all three of these critical aspects,” Muttoni noted. “This is the gap we have been strategically positioned to fill since our inception, and it is the problem we are now dedicating ourselves to solving.”

As part of this strategic pivot, the company’s original Story Protocol token, known as IP, has been converted to the Data Network token, or DATA. The token migration will occur on a 1:1 basis, requiring no action from existing IP token holders.

The DATA token, which previously traded as IP and reached a high of $14.78, was recently trading around $0.349, representing an approximate 14% increase over the past 24 hours. However, at this valuation, it remains nearly 98% below its all-time high recorded last September. This figure follows a 25% rebound from an all-time low of $0.275 earlier this month.

“We have made our commitment, and we are fortunate to have exceptional launch partners who are validating our product-market fit and shaping our product’s direction,” Muttoni commented. “Our focus now is entirely on scaling and execution.”