IPSwap

Problem

Intellectual property is valuable, illiquid, and impossible to trade.

Patents, characters, music rights, and scientific discoveries sit locked inside institutions. There was no credible way to prove, transfer, and license fractional ownership of IP on-chain — the same ownership-and-trust problem ukiyo identified for real-world assets, applied to intangibles.

What I built

From ukiyo’s IP thesis to a working alpha on Story.

The IP-monetisation thesis started at ukiyo Labs. After ukiyo wound down, I carried it forward at Story Protocol — blockchain infrastructure for registering, licensing, and tracing intellectual property. I built IPSwap on the Story blockchain as a standalone blueprint: marketplace model, on-chain licensing flows, interface, and a working alpha.

Along the way I built the first protocol “Frame” on Farcaster — experimental on-chain social primitives that put protocol actions inside the social feed. IPSwap’s concepts fed into ip.world, now a core product in the Story ecosystem, where I continued contributing through 2025.