Seoul, South Korea, September twenty second, 2025, Chainwire
Seoul Trade, One in every of Solely Two Licensed Platforms For Unlisted Securities, Will Completely Use Story To Settle Tokenized RWAs
Partnership set to carry programmable belongings to Korea’s $450b crypto market, the world’s second largest by buying and selling quantity
- Strategic collaboration to carry all of Seoul Trade’s Buying and selling Exercise for Tokenized belongings on Story.
- Seoul Trade, one in every of solely two licensed platforms for buying and selling unlisted securities, might be selecting Story’s blockchain as an unique infrastructure accomplice targeted on real-world belongings (RWAs), unlocking a brand new class of compliant, investable digital securities.
- For the primary 3 years, Seoul Trade will use Story’s Layer-1 blockchain because the unique infrastructure for registering and settling tokenized belongings.
- Transactions might be powered by Story’s native token ($IP), creating a totally on-chain market for beforehand illiquid cultural and monetary belongings.
- The collaboration will deal with tokenizing Korean content material IP, together with Okay-pop royalties, Okay-drama rights, webtoons, video games, and patents, making these world cultural phenomena investable for the primary time. Notable IP already registered on Story contains BLACKPINK, BTS, Psy, and Pinkfong (Child Shark)
Seoul Trade and Story Protocol have entered into an settlement to construct Korea’s first devoted blockchain alternate for tokenized cultural and mental property belongings. The collaboration outlines how Seoul Trade will launch a regulated RWA buying and selling platform powered totally by Story’s blockchain infrastructure for the subsequent 3 years.
Seoul Trade is a fintech firm that gives brokerage companies for unlisted shares of startups and enterprise corporations by way of its unlisted securities buying and selling platform “Seoul Trade.” It’s one in every of solely two platforms formally chosen by the Korean authorities to function below the monetary regulatory sandbox. Seoul Trade has obtained funding from main Korean and world VCs akin to Hashed, SoftBank Ventures, Capstone Companions, and POSCO Expertise Funding.
Beneath the settlement, Seoul Trade will use Story as the only infrastructure supplier for registering and settling tokenized choices. For an preliminary time period 3 years, all listings on the alternate starting from music IP and webtoons to patents and personal securities, might be recorded on Story’s community, leveraging its composable structure and native $IP token financial system.
IP is anticipated to turn into Korea’s main real-world asset (RWA) class, with Story positioned because the unique chain for Seoul Trade’s IP tokenization. Story is a Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built to make mental property programmable. Backed by $136 million from a16z, Polychain, and Samsung Ventures, Story launched its mainnet in early 2025 and has rapidly turn into a number one infrastructure for tokenized IP.
Korea is house to a few of the world’s most profitable inventive exports, however monetizing IP stays restricted to insiders. This new buying and selling platform goals to alter that. By bringing IP onchain, Story and Seoul Trade are unlocking a brand new class of fractional, clear, and globally accessible digital securities. World IP is valued at over $80 trillion, but most of it stays illiquid and inaccessible. This partnership goals to unlock IP and different real-world belongings (RWAs) by way of blockchain, permitting world traders to personal, commerce, and earn from high-value inventive works.
Korean storytellers have captured the world’s creativeness. World hits like Okay-POP Demon Hunter turned Netflix’s most-popular movie of all time with 236 million views within the first 9 weeks. Parasite gained Finest Image on the Oscars. Squid Recreation turned Netflix’s most-watched present. Child Shark is a world phenomenon. However behind this success lies a structural drawback: creators not often retain possession or share within the long-term upside. Platforms like Netflix personal the IP. Studios function on skinny margins. At the same time as Korean content material goes world, the worth flows elsewhere.This imbalance has sparked rising debate in Korea, with many voices calling for a brand new mannequin that enables creators to interrupt free from reliance on upfront financing and pre-production offers.
Story is introducing such an alternate by way of content material tokenization. By enabling world followers to straight take part in fundraising, manufacturing corporations can retain possession of their IP and as a substitute interact in distribution agreements that guarantee fairer and extra sustainable income fashions. This method not solely protects creators’ rights but additionally opens the door to a brand new, fan-driven financial system in leisure.
The platform will mix retail accessibility with institutional-grade compliance below Korean laws. Ought to a Korean won-pegged stablecoin be authorized by regulators, the platform is designed to help its integration it might be built-in for native forex settlement, additional aligning with home monetary infrastructure.
Tokenized content material, together with music rights, recreation universes, could be listed and traded by retail and institutional traders alike, all inside Korea’s evolving STO regulatory sandbox.
Story Protocol is the world’s first Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built for IP. It permits IP to be registered, licensed, and monetized in actual time, embedding royalties and utilization phrases straight into the tokenized illustration of inventive belongings.
Backed by traders together with a16z, Polychain, Hashed and Samsung Ventures, Story launched its mainnet in early 2025 and has already quickly expanded its ecosystem and onboarded a various music collectives, DeFi protocols, and world leisure IPs. For instance, Story has already begun tokenizing main Okay-culture IP, together with the music rights of main Okay-pop artists (BTS, BLACKPINK, Psy, BIGBANG) and world artists (Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus)
Seoul Trade’s integration makes Story the de facto infrastructure for Korea’s subsequent wave of tokenized RWAs, positioning it because the blockchain gateway for cultural capital.
This partnership bridges Korea’s booming cultural industries with the world’s capital markets.
The platform will prioritize belongings with sturdy fan engagement and long-term worth potential, and also will help future integrations with monetary merchandise, remix licenses, and governance layers, bringing programmability to beforehand static IP rights.
Quotes from Management
JD Yang, CEO, Seoul Trade:
“Via this collaboration, Seoul Trade has additional strengthened the soundness and belief within the strategy of constructing our STO alternate. We intention to turn into Korea’s main STO alternate by way of a differentiated tokenization mannequin centered on IP and content material.”
Seung-yoon “SY” Lee, Co-founder & CEO, Story Protocol:
“We see this as a landmark step in making Korea’s world-class cultural IP accessible to world traders. Story permits creators and platforms like Seoul Trade to transcend conventional licensing fashions to construct liquidity, loyalty, and monetization round programmable IP. Mental property is the most important untapped asset class on the planet, price over $80 trillion, and with Korea now the second-largest crypto buying and selling market on the planet, the chance to pioneer new asset lessons is very large. This partnership brings us one step nearer to unlocking that worth at world scale. With this transfer, Story might be one in every of solely two chains powering RWAs in Korea, the second-largest crypto market on the planet, confirming IP’s place on the middle of Korea’s subsequent blockchain development cycle.”
About Story
Story is a Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built to make mental property programmable. Backed by $136 million from a16z, Polychain, and Samsung Ventures, Story launched its mainnet in early 2025 and has rapidly turn into a number one infrastructure for tokenized IP. The community permits creators, builders, enterprises, and AI labs to register content material as on-chain belongings with embedded rights, turning media, knowledge, and AI-generated works into legally enforceable digital property. By bridging the hole between outdated authorized frameworks and the realities of the AI period, Story makes it doable to trace provenance, automate licensing, and unlock new markets for concepts. As the inspiration for IP’s evolution into an internet-native asset class, Story powers a extra open, equitable, and composable inventive financial system.
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Story
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