IP Strategy Highlights Story Foundation's Transition to The DATA Foundation and Launch of DATA Network

GIG HARBOR, Wash., June 26, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IP Strategy Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:IPST) (the "Company" or "IP Strategy"), the first company to adopt a treasury reserve policy centered on $DATA, formerly $IP, today highlighted Story Foundation’s strategic transition to The DATA Foundation ("DATA"), including the launch of DATA Network, Trace, and a flagship integration with Kled, which DATA describes as the world’s largest opt-in human data marketplace.

The transition to DATA Network reflects the Foundation's sharpened focus on AI training data as a critical category of intellectual property. DATA states that the network is designed to provide infrastructure for AI data provenance, licensing, monetization, and auditability, supporting the registration and verification of rights-cleared data for use in AI workflows.

DATA Network and Trace Launch

As part of the launch, DATA announced that Kled has begun the process of registering 1.5 billion user-contributed records on DATA Network. Once fully registered, Kled’s licensing rails, contributor receipts, and stablecoin payouts will run on DATA Network, creating an auditable framework for data contribution, licensing, and compensation.

DATA also introduced Trace, a public audit and search platform designed to generate immutable, confidential receipts for data contributions. Trace is intended to allow AI labs and enterprises to verify data provenance, consent, licensing, and chain of custody at scale, while enabling upstream compensation for contributors’ data and intellectual property.

The launch builds on earlier progress from Poseidon, the AI data processing project incubated by DATA. Poseidon is focused on cleaning, normalizing, and scoring raw human data for authenticity and quality, helping turn raw data into model-ready datasets. DATA announced that Poseidon, backed by a16z and now running entirely on DATA, has launched its contributor app Numo, bringing contributors into the AI economy in exchange for real-time payouts.

Together, DATA Network, Trace, Kled, Poseidon, and Numo represent an integrated stack for sourcing, verifying, licensing, and preparing AI training data.

"The announcement of 1.5 billion new registered records being loaded onchain via the $DATA token is monumental, and demonstrates continued demand for collecting data and proving its provenance for creators, owners and users," said Justin Stiefel, CEO of IP Strategy. "We applaud the DATA Foundation for taking this bold step forward and for accelerating the recognition of the DATA blockchain as the immutable proof of provenance for digital assets."

$IP to $DATA Token Migration

DATA has also announced that the $IP token will now be listed as $DATA on a one-to-one basis with no action required from existing holders. An FAQ from DATA is available here.

From IP Strategy’s perspective, this transition reinforces the long-term thesis that programmable intellectual property infrastructure is becoming increasingly relevant to AI data markets. As AI systems require higher-quality, rights-cleared, and verifiable datasets, infrastructure that can register ownership, support auditability, enforce licensing, and enable contributor compensation is positioned to become increasingly important.

IP Strategy expects to continue highlighting ecosystem developments that support the expansion of programmable IP, AI-native data infrastructure, and long-term utility for the DATA ecosystem.

About IP Strategy

IP Strategy Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:IPST) is the first Nasdaq-listed company to hold $DATA tokens, formerly $IP, as a primary reserve asset and operate validator infrastructure for the DATA Network. The Company provides public market investors broad exposure to the programmable intellectual property and AI-native data economy in a regulated equity format. IP Strategy’s treasury reserve provides direct participation in the DATA ecosystem, which is designed to support on-chain provenance, licensing, monetization, and auditability for intellectual property and AI training data.

About The DATA Foundation

Data is the biggest bottleneck in frontier AI. The data models need most either sits siloed with people and companies, or doesn’t exist yet, and won’t, until incentives are aligned to create it. DATA Network is the world’s AI audit rails built to answer the three questions every lab asks: can you source data at scale, prove where it came from, and guarantee its quality? Contributor apps including Numo and Kled supply opt-in human data; Trace gives every record a public, tamper-proof receipt; Poseidon turns it into model-ready datasets, so frontier AI can keep advancing on a foundation it can trust. Story Foundation has been rebranded as The DATA Foundation, and $IP is now $DATA. Learn more at datafdn.org.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may be identified by words such as "aims," "anticipates," "believes," "could," "estimates," "expects," "forecasts," "goal," "intends," "may," "plans," "possible," "potential," "seeks," "will," and variations of these words or similar expressions that are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Any such statements in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the potential for the DATA Network to provide infrastructure for AI data provenance, licensing, monetization, and auditability, supporting the registration and verification of rights-cleared data for use in AI workflows; the potential registration by Kled of 1.5 billion user-contributed records on the DATA Network; the potential for Kled’s licensing rails, contributor receipts, and stablecoin payouts to run on the DATA Network; the potential for Trace to generate immutable, confidential receipts for data contributions and allow AI labs and enterprises to verify data provenance, consent, licensing, and chain of custody at scale, while enabling upstream compensation for contributors’ data and intellectual property; the potential for Numo to bring contributors into the AI economy in exchange for real-time payouts; the continued demand for collecting data and proving its provenance for creators, owners and users; the expected migration of $IP tokens and the expected listing of $DATA tokens, converted on a one-to-one basis from $IP tokens; the increasing relevance of programmable intellectual property infrastructure in AI data markets; the increasing importance and need for infrastructure that can register ownership, support auditability, enforce licensing, and enable contributor compensation; and the expectation for IP Strategy to continue highlighting ecosystem developments that support the expansion of programmable IP, AI-native data infrastructure, and long-term utility for the DATA ecosystem.

Any forward-looking statements in this press release are based on IP Strategy’s current expectations, estimates and projections only as of the date of this release and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks related to the volatility of the Company’s common stock and any correlation between the Company’s stock price and the price of $DATA tokens, formerly $IP, or any correlation between the Company’s stock price and activity or projects within the DATA ecosystem, the Company’s digital asset treasury strategy and validator operations, the legal, commercial, regulatory and technical uncertainty regarding digital assets generally, and expectations with respect to future performance and growth. These and other risks concerning IP Strategy’s programs and operations are described in additional detail in its latest annual report on Form 10-K, subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and any other subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. IP Strategy explicitly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except to the extent required by law.

Investor Contact

ir@ipstrategy.co