Sony-Affiliated L2 Backs a Standard for Registering IP Token by Token: An Attempt to Build a "Central Depository" for Copyright Licensing Onchain

Three Consecutive Days of Announcements Sketch an "Onchain Entertainment Economy"

Since its mainnet launch in January 2025, Soneium has run for roughly a year and nine months as an L2 without a native token, with gas paid in ETH. On October 26 it disclosed for the first time a plan to issue an ecosystem-native token, SONEIUM. The official blog describes it only as an "economic layer" connecting creators, IP owners, builders, fans and investors, and specifies neither concrete functions such as gas, governance or royalty receipt, nor TGE timing. The announcement states that plans may change, that no token has been issued, that the post is not a solicitation, and that any future issuance will be subject to applicable law; Japanese media likewise report that issuance "is not formally decided and domestic distribution is undetermined." The accompanying Tokenized IP framework brings the future revenue of IP-related business activity, such as merchandise, licensing and new productions, onchain so that fans and investors can take part in funding. Three forms were presented: IP Tokens tied to individual titles, fund-type IP Vaults, and IP Bonds backed by entertainment businesses. IP Tokens may take either a collectible form serving as proof of fandom or a fungible form circulating as the main currency of that IP's economy. On October 27, IP Vault opened access to a roughly USD 549 million (about JPY 86.6 billion) royalties fund managed by Switzerland's Partners Group, comprising 53 investments and over 100,000 royalty streams including The Weeknd's back catalogue, Discovery's television library and pharmaceutical, brand and energy-transition assets, tokenized by HashKey-backed Asseto, alongside ipUSD, the stablecoin used for deposits and withdrawals (backed 1:1 by Startale USD, minimum 100 ipUSD). The first subscription round filled in about two hours. On October 29, Sony Group Corporation announced the Sony Onchain Entertainment Incubation Program, with global applications open until the end of December and selection running through March 2027, reorganizing two predecessor programs that have supported 43 projects since 2024 into an entertainment-focused global framework.

Moriusa as the First IP; K-pop Concert Revenue Becomes Royalty Bonds

The first IP Token is Moriusa, a character from Tokyo-based Super State Holdings, whose creators collectively count over 60 million followers and 13.7 billion YouTube views; fans are to participate financially in its expansion into merchandise, animated shorts and licensing. The other pillar is a partnership with Korea's DayOneDream (WAVIST) to tokenize royalties from the concert business of established K-pop artists as IP Bonds. The former is "growth capital for a newborn IP," the latter "securitization of an existing business's cash flows," showing that Tokenized IP intends to handle both a venture-like and a bond-like side through one window. Soneium Portal, launched as the venue for these sales and distributions, begins with primary sales and is to expand in stages to fan participation and royalty distribution; whether Japanese residents can use it was not clarified at announcement.

What ERC-8432 Specifies, and What It Does Not

ERC-8432, "Onchain IP Asset and License Registry," which Soneium has pledged to support, is a draft Ethereum standard authored solely by Jeroen Ost (@jeroost), dated June 30, 2026, with discussion opening on Ethereum Magicians at the end of September; its status is Draft. It was not drafted by Soneium, which announced its support for the external standard on October 6. The specification centers on three records: an IP Asset identifying the work, its authors and administrative owner; reusable License Terms identified by a content hash; and a License Agreement binding an asset, terms and licensee. Each is globally referenceable via the ipid, ipterms and ipagreement prefixes using a chainId, registry address and ID triple. License Terms carry machine-readable fields for expiry, transferability, revocability, exclusivity and jurisdiction, a tri-state summary of commercial use, derivatives and attribution, and a fee-model classifier, while the legally operative instrument is incorporated by reference through a URI and content hash. The standard includes signed derivation attestations to parent works, binding to ERC-721 tokens, a basis-points helper for ERC-2981-style consumers, and pre-flight hooks such as canLicense through which registry operators can insert identity or jurisdiction requirements. Crucially, the specification lists royalty distribution, fee collection, derivation-graph traversal, dispute resolution, legal enforcement and cross-chain verification as things the core does not do, and repeatedly states that an "active" agreement result does not establish legal validity or the licensor's underlying rights. Whereas Story Protocol integrates registration, licensing and graph on its own network and ERC-5218 expresses rights token-centrically, ERC-8432 positions itself as a "mechanism standard that privileges no registry." Of the three layers in Soneium's blog, IP Registry, IP Graph and IP Execution Layer, the standard covers only the registry.

What Works in a Registry Without Legal Force

Japanese copyright arises without formalities, and registration with the Agency for Cultural Affairs provides only perfection against third parties for transfers and certain presumptions. Collective management of music rights is carried out by registered operators such as JASRAC under the Copyright Management Business Act, and an onchain registry acquires no legal force in their place. ERC-8432 takes this as given, defining the registry as "evidence, not a lock." What can still work is, first, queryability: other contracts and AI agents can confirm in a single call which terms attach to which IP and who holds a valid license; and second, interoperability: revenue distribution and redemption execution can be delegated to contracts outside the registry while standardizing the reference. Where a securities depository carries legal title, this design leaves title in the legal system and the contract documents and places only the wiring for lookup and settlement onchain. The greatest significance is that financial products like IP Vault can sit on that wiring, so entertainment IP cash flows begin to be handled in the same vessel as institutional-grade assets.

[Business Development Insights]

1. ERC-8432 is not Soneium-specific but a mechanism standard implementable by any EVM registry. Japanese IP holders and license management businesses can make their rights ledgers referenceable in ipid form independently of any decision to join Soneium. Leaving legal force in contracts and collective management as before, publishing only a machine-readable rights summary and content hash onchain lowers the cost of usage queries by AI agents and of connecting to overseas platforms.
2. Tokenized IP places "growth capital for new IP (the Moriusa type)" and "securitization of existing cash flows (the K-pop concert and Partners Group fund types)" side by side in one window, and the latter is in substance a financial product. A Japanese operator building a similar scheme must first determine whether royalty beneficial interests constitute collective investment scheme interests or electronically recorded transferable rights under the FIEA, and whether a dedicated stablecoin like ipUSD constitutes an electronic payment instrument under the Payment Services Act.
3. With Sony Group Corporation itself making onchain implementation on Soneium an application requirement for its incubation call, and with Sony Ventures invested in Startale, Soneium becomes the lowest-friction entertainment L2 for major Japanese IP holders. Content companies would be rational to test primary sales on Soneium Portal and publication of an ERC-8432-compliant registry at small scale, measuring real demand for fan funding, before considering a chain of their own.

[Sources]

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