Story Protocol rebrands to DATA Foundation in AI pivot
Cointelegraph 2026-06-25 15:00:00
Context: Story Protocol, a layer-1 blockchain company focused on intellectual property licensing, has rebranded as the DATA Foundation as it shifts its focus to providing licensable data to AI firms. The company aims to address the issue of AI labs running out of internet data to scrape by building essential infrastructure for training AI. This pivot comes as multiple crypto projects, including Story Protocol, turn to AI as funding and hype for the technology accelerate.
Key Facts
- Story Protocol has rebranded as the DATA Foundation, with a new focus on building essential infrastructure for training AI, specifically addressing the issue of AI labs running out of internet data to scrape.
- The company is launching an on-chain registry for AI training data provenance and licensing, called Trace, and integrating with Kled, a company that provides licensable data sets for AI training.
- Andrea Muttoni, Story president and product chief, will become CEO of the DATA Foundation, while Kled founder Avi Patel will join as chief data officer and adviser, and Story founder Seung-yoon Lee will serve as an adviser to DATA.
- The DATA Foundation's project Poseidon, an AI data-processing project, has shown "immediate traction" with major AI firms and raised a $15 million seed round in July 2025, which will serve as the processing layer of the protocol.
- The company's pivot to AI comes as other major crypto platforms, such as Immutable and Coinbase, are also retooling for AI, with Immutable launching an AI marketing platform and Coinbase introducing a tool that allows consumer AI models to connect with a user's exchange account.