Story, a purpose-built protocol for registering intellectual property (making IP programmable) has opened to doors for the composability of a lot of IP asset, but a huge portion of existing IP lie on the internet in silos and moving them verifiably, would require cooperation from the various platforms. Most platforms are rent-seekers and have no real incentive to protect their user’s data, in fact, they’re incentivised to do the opposite.

Having identified this massive issue, the team at ZERO Labs decided to build a new protocol. One that is economically secured (through EigenLayer), that will enable developers in the Story ecosystem to leverage Web Proofs (zkTLS) to on-ramp already existing IP assets from web2 platforms unto Story.

The Forge became the first step towards this goal. And now, creators across already existing platforms can take their exisiting work and publish it to Story (to protect their IP, and enable composability), while also being able to leverage the power of Web Proofs to prove their ownership of their IP assets in a privacy preserving manner, among other things.

To understand why we made certain design decisions, check out our Protocol Design.