SY Lee

Big step forward for DATA today. Sui Foundation is making a $30M strategic investment in the network, which makes it DATA's largest holder, above both the DATA Foundation and PIP Labs.

Every asset that became valuable at scale eventually got a system of record, from land titles to share registers. Data is becoming the asset that decides how good AI gets, and it still has none. Most of what models are trained on today carries no proof of where it came from or whether the people behind it ever agreed to share it.

Trace is that system of record, with 275M+ data receipts registered since June. On Sui it can go further. Walrus and Seal let Trace keep an encrypted reference copy of the original data and control who can access it, so every record can be checked against the data itself. That is the foundation for a world where AI training data can be owned and licensed like any other asset, with the people who create it sharing in the value.

I'm also joining Sui Foundation as Strategic Advisor to help build that future across the Sui stack.

Excited for what we build together.

New name, more focused mission, tackling the most important problem in AI today.

We started Story to move the world's IP onchain. What became crystal clear is that the most valuable IP in the world of AI is actually data.

Specifically the real, human, licensable data every AI lab needs and can't get cleanly. Soon enough, every company sitting on human behavior will become a data business, whether they intend to or not. The teams that can source that data at scale and prove where it came from with consent will build some of the most valuable companies of this era.

Excited to have @devrelius lead as the Chief Executive Officer with @avipat_ as the Chief Data Officer role (advisory) at The DATA Foundation. I'm excited to continue supporting The DATA Foundation team and their mission through my efforts at @piplabsxyz and @psdnai. We won’t stop until all AI training data leaves a trace.

We won’t stop until all AI training data leaves a trace.

After incubating @psdnai, our conviction only got stronger:

The data AI needs isn’t on the internet.

Critically, we learned what it takes to collect it: real participation, clean processing, and systems for consent and provenance.

Numo is what’s next. Welcome to early access.

Excited to speak in front of @POTUS @realDonaldTrump alongside other fantastic speakers.

In a tough macro environment, predictable supply events can become magnets for short-term behavior. We’d rather make the disciplined call early and keep building for the long term.

For us, we’re thinking about creating the conditions to focus. Focus on shipping, on deepening product-market fit, and on the parts of the ecosystem where we’re seeing the strongest pull.

Over the past year, the Story roadmap has sharpened as new use cases and industry forces have accelerated, particularly at the intersection of IP and AI. That’s changing how we prioritize, where we invest time, and how we think about the next phase of the network.

What’s become increasingly clear is that as AI systems scale, the hardest problems are around data, ownership, and alignment (not models or compute). We’re seeing growing demand for infrastructure that can support high-quality/rare data, clear rights, and sustainable incentives at the same time. That’s where we’re focusing our energy.

Following strong validator and community support, two governance proposals with direct impact on Story’s tokenomics and staking incentives have passed and are being implemented.These will reduce excess issuance, expand participation, and better align the network for the long run.

We’ve been tightening the economic foundations of the network: reducing emissions from locked tokens, broadening access to staking, and increasingly rewarding active, unlocked participation. This unlock update is a natural extension of that work.

Creating that kind of infrastructure requires focus. Decisions like this give us the optionality to build without being pulled into short-term dynamics and gives us the freedom to prioritize and iterate. Iterate a lot and fast.

This update delays any new liquidity from previously locked tokens by six months (Feb 13 → Aug 13). No changes to supply, allocations, or vesting. Just timing.

It will give us room to execute with alignment and clarity as we move into what we see as a defining chapter for Story.