Story frees intellectual property from its current constraints by onramping it to the blockchain. However, finding a technological foundation that is able to power a vision of this magnitude is a challenging task, even despite the abundance of layer 1 and layer 2 solutions in the web3 sector. That's because the nature of IP pushes the boundaries of blockchain technology.

Free-flowing, programmable IP as enabled by Story quickly forms complex relationships as creators register, remix and monetize their work, and other users leverage these IPs for use cases like IPFi. Traversing these complex networks of countless parent-child relationships quickly and cost-efficiently has proven to be impossible on existing layer 1 blockchains.

That’s why Story set out to build the world’s IP blockchain - a layer 1 solution that treats intellectual property as a first class citizen while ensuring fast interactions and low costs.

Story Network is a purpose-built layer 1 blockchain achieving the best of EVM and Cosmos SDK. It was designed to handle complex data structures like intellectual property networks by implementing a graph-like data storage into the execution layer and natively enshrining a Proof-of-Creativity Protocol. This way, big networks of IP relationships can be traversed quickly and cost-efficiently. This is the fundamental cornerstone powering Story’s core IP features like permissionless licensing and automated royalty payments, which would be infeasible on other layer 1 or layer 2 solutions.

While implementing essential features that boost the handling of complex data, Story Network's execution environment is EVM-equivalent, allowing developers to take their existing applications written in Solidity over to Story. This makes Story a platform with key innovations and optimizations to support complex relational use cases, where any kind of application can tap into the global IP layer as needed.

Due to the single slot finality implemented at the consensus layer, transactions are happening instantly, providing a great user experience across the entire ecosystem. The extensive toolings like our SDKs provide a straightforward developer experience, ready to onboard the next hundreds of teams building IP-centric applications.

Want to dive in deeper? Read Stanford Blockchain Review's article on Story's architecture.

The history of Web3 has seen significant paradigm shifts, beginning with general-purpose blockchains like Ethereum, which proved that decentralized systems were viable but struggled with scalability. As growing demand pushed Ethereum’s performance limitations, the industry shifted toward performance-oriented solutions. These projects, including layer 1 and layer 2 blockchains, aimed to solve the “scalability trilemma,” improving transaction speeds and costs, but still adhered to the idea of one blockchain handling everything. Recently, the focus has shifted to purpose-built blockchains designed for specific use cases rather than general-purpose applications.

Purpose-built blockchains present a fundamental shift from prior infrastructure, not only because they built their technology using a modular approach; their main difference from general purpose and performance-oriented blockchains is that they are not trying to provide a one-size-fits-all, but rather pose a decentralized platform that is centered around a typical use case. Their approach to building a solution does not start with a Web3-native problem—as is the case with performance-oriented blockchain—but rather with an issue that lies beyond the scope of the industry: a real-world use case that decentralized technology adapts to.

As in Story's case, this targeted performance enhancement is often achieved by enshrining pre-compiled smart contracts that carry the chain’s essential business logic. In combination, the modular layers are chosen with the particular use case in mind, allowing a fine-tuned approach with a clear goal. Finally, the design of a dedicated, purpose-built blockchain allows for the implementation of validator-specific logic to unleash advanced use cases. The clear focus on one use case allows purpose-built blockchains to inject problem-specific logic at the infrastructure layer, providing users of the blockchains performance benefits for the specific use case without needing to adhere to all possible use cases (as with general-purpose blockchains).

You can read more about purpose-built blockchains here.