On July 31, 2025, Grayscale Investments announced the launch of the Grayscale Story Trust, a single-asset investment vehicle providing accredited investors exposure to IP – the native token of Story Protocol. This marks Grayscale's first expansion beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum into blockchain-based intellectual property infrastructure.
The trust targets the $80 trillion intellectual property market, positioning Story Protocol as critical infrastructure for embedding licensing terms, royalties, and attribution directly into on-chain assets. According to Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, Head of Product & Research at Grayscale: "This gives investors exposure to a protocol shaping the foundational IP layer for the information and AI era, including creative content and real-world data powering advanced intelligent systems."
Story Protocol already processes over 1.7 million IP transactions monthly, serving use cases from music royalties to AI training datasets. The protocol enables programmable digital rights through decentralized IP registries, automated royalty payments via smart contracts, and cross-platform interoperability.
The trust is currently open for daily subscriptions exclusively to accredited investors – individuals earning over $200,000 annually or entities with $5+ million in assets. Grayscale indicated potential secondary market trading could follow regulatory approvals, mirroring the path of its Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs which held $21.2B and $4.25B in AUM respectively as of July 30.