AI native infrastructure and programmable IP blockchain Story announced a $3.6 million digital asset reserve plan for $IP tokens with Nasdaq-listed Heritage Distilling Holding Company, Inc. (Nasdaq: CASK). The transaction is supported by Story Foundation and multiple top investment institutions including a16z crypto, Amber Group, Arrington Capital, dao5, and Hashed.
The market believes this transaction is highly similar to the case of BitMine (Nasdaq: BMNR), where stock prices surged 30 times within days after announcing an Ethereum digital asset reserve (DAT) strategy. Notably, this is a16z's first participation in a listed company's digital asset strategy allocation, and it involves the lowest market cap Nasdaq-listed company introducing a digital asset reserve strategy, with enormous potential future value.
To support the token reserve plan, Heritage will invest $82 million to purchase tokens from Story Foundation, which will then repurchase $IP in the secondary market in full within 90 days.
$IP is Story's native token, allowing users to register intellectual property on-chain and flexibly set usage terms through smart contracts, enabling convenient transactions and monetization of IP between humans and AI agents. The Story ecosystem has driven tokenization of hundreds of thousands of digital assets through applications like Aria and Ablo, and has collaborated with global celebrities such as Justin Bieber, BTS, BLACKPINK, Adidas, and Crocs, continuously expanding IP application boundaries.
In 2024, Story partnered with Stability AI to introduce transparent authorization and compensation tracking, supporting open-source AI model training. In the third quarter of 2025, Grayscale will launch a Story trust, providing regulated $IP investment channels for institutional investors. The Poseidon incubation project launched in July further expands the decentralized training data field, supporting AI scenarios like robotics, AR/VR, and autonomous systems, having secured a $15 million seed round led by a16z.
PIP Labs CEO and Story founder Seung Yoon Lee stated: "This is a golden moment for innovation in crypto, AI, and real asset tokenization. With AI's popularization, we believe $IP will become the new 'digital gold' with enormous value potential. Story Foundation will use all proceeds from this token sale to expand network scale and market repurchases, ensuring long-term ecosystem consistency." This reserve plan is another disruptive innovation following his successful sale of the US web novel platform Radish to Kakao for 50 billion Korean won.
Heritage CEO Justin Stiefel noted: "This transaction is a breakthrough in Heritage's digital asset strategy and that of the entire listed company. For over a decade, we have been industry pioneers, deeply understanding the unique value of intellectual property, and view $IP as a new strategic reserve asset leading growth in the AI era."
This strategic transaction is also supported by several experienced crypto and tech domain experts who will continue to provide professional guidance for Heritage's strategic development, with a core team including:
- SY Lee (PIP Labs Founder and CEO, Story Founder)
- Phil Blows (Co-founder of AQRU and B2 Capital Management, Chief Investment Officer candidate)
- Ben Sternberg (PIP Labs CFO, former Radish CFO, Fexy Media Founder)
- David Lee (Former Google Executive, former Chief Business Development Officer at 451 Media)
- Erick Zhang (Founding Partner of Nomad Capital, former Binance Research Head and CoinMarketCap CEO)
- Ravi Kaza (Arrington Capital CIO, Special Advisory Director)
Story Foundation Director Matt Shaw said: "Story's mission is to make intellectual property an investable and programmable asset, and this reserve plan demonstrates scalable implementation. Through this structure, public market investors can easily invest in $IP through equity without managing digital wallets. Story Foundation plans to use 100% of the net cash from this transaction for public market repurchases, demonstrating responsible governance and deep collaboration, while bringing digital asset leadership advantages to Heritage."
