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Story Network Update
Story
19 August 2025
From Launch to Chapter 2
In February 2025, Story launched its native Layer 1 network, the foundation for everything that will be built in the Story ecosystem.
Since then, Story has consistently delivered on every planned milestone laid out in our initial Technical Roadmap. This quarter’s engineering work builds directly toward Story’s Chapter 2 vision: an open, programmable IP network ready for the AI era.
When we talk about Chapter 2, we mean a network where creators, developers, and institutions can transact in rights-cleared, machine-readable IP; where AI applications can tap into secure, verifiable datasets; and where ownership and attribution are enforced on-chain at scale.
The progress we’ve made since launch isn’t just about keeping the network healthy; it’s about preparing Story’s Layer 1 to become the foundational settlement layer for this next phase.
In the months since, we’ve shipped major upgrades across both the Story client and Story-Geth client, with a focus on security, stability, and developer experience.
We’ve also made important architectural changes that set the stage for greater scalability and decentralization in the quarters ahead.
What We’ve Accomplished
Over the past few months, we’ve successfully launched the IP Portal and Story Attestation Service products, marking major milestones in demonstrating our network’s core capabilities and the value it brings to the broader ecosystem. Throughout these product rollouts, we’ve upheld our core values of security, reliability, and usability. We have implemented a set of network upgrades with zero incidents, forks, or halts, and maintained 100% network uptime.
Node Client Overlook
The Story client is the heart of the network; the software that validators, developers, and node operators use to interact with the blockchain.
Since launch, PIP Labs has released a steady cadence of updates, each one building on the last to improve reliability, security, and ease of use for the entire ecosystem.
- Virgil (v1.1.0) - focused on improving APIs and logging, applying important security patches from CometBFT, and fixing issues in the staking system.
- Ovid (v1.2.0) - brought major upgrades: changes to consensus parameters, snap sync support in the EVM, stronger validator key encryption, new CLI options (like the with-comet flag), and more API features for managing the withdrawal queue. It also improved transaction validation, error handling, and overall CLI security.
- Polybius (v1.3.0) - introduced the testnet rollout for expanding the active validator set from 64 to 80 on the network.
Story-Geth
While the Story client handles consensus and protocol logic, Story-Geth manages the Ethereum-compatible execution layer.
Keeping Story-Geth up to date ensures developers can leverage the latest Ethereum features while benefiting from Story’s unique IP-first design. This quarter’s updates maintain that compatibility and improve how data is stored and processed under the hood.
- Cosmas (v1.1.0) enabled support for Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, including EIPs 7702, 2537, 7623, and 7685, making Story compatible with the latest Ethereum features. It also introduced a new journal version for improved data handling.
Chain Health
Network health is more than uptime stats; it’s about resilience and trust. The metrics and fixes from this quarter show that Story’s mainnet is performing better than planned, with fast block times, no downtime, and prompt responses to potential inactive security issues.
These safeguards are essential for building confidence among developers, validators, and IP owners who depend on the network.
- Block Production: Average block time maintained at ~2.5s, which was faster than our original plan of 3s. No fork events or chain halts reported.
- Validator Uptime: 99.56% average validator uptime across top 64 nodes with 100% network uptime.
- Security Bug Bounty: Through our bug bounty program, we resolved two inactive security issues before they could be exploited, ensuring our systems remained fully secure and operational, with no impact to network operations, and published detailed postmortem reports to ensure transparency.
These achievements marked a strategic phase in laying the foundation for future scalability and decentralization. The pace and consistency of delivery reflect Story’s long-term commitment to building a resilient network that empowers developers and supports a wide range of applications.
Looking Ahead: Story Chapter 2
The next six months will focus on making Story even more robust and decentralized, while adding powerful new features for programmable IP.
The validator expansion will make the network more resilient to centralisation risks, and the upcoming product releases will give creators and developers more tools to bring their IP on-chain in innovative ways.
Highlights include:
- IP Vaults are a new core addition to Story's multi-core architecture. They allow intellectual property (IP) owners to securely attach confidential data to their IP assets, with access automatically granted to license holders upon acquisition.
- PoC Protocol V2 to unlock AI-native IP infrastructure
- Enhanced Governance Process to increase transparency and decentralization
- Validator expansions to strengthen decentralization
- EVM upgrades for timely release of EVM’s newest features
And this is just the start; major releases are on the horizon. We actively invite open source contributions, community collaboration, and responsible security reporting to help us strengthen the community and ecosystem. Follow our work on X (Twitter) and join the conversation on Github for real-time updates!
