DATA Network, previously known as Story, plans to decommission its standalone blockchain and migrate its AI training data protocol to the Sui ecosystem. This strategic shift is backed by a $30 million investment from Sui Foundation. The project’s Trace registry, which launched in June, will integrate into Sui, while Walrus, a decentralized storage platform within the Sui network, will serve as the default storage layer for applications operated by DATA Foundation.
The decision follows the rebranding of Story Foundation to DATA Foundation in June, marking a pivot from intellectual property licensing to building a full stack for AI training data. A spokesperson explained that maintaining a dedicated blockchain for a single use case incurred significant costs for validators, network security, and infrastructure. With Trace growing to over 270 million registrations in approximately four months, rebuilding existing Sui capabilities like Walrus and Seal was deemed inefficient. The current chain will remain operational until the upgrade is complete, with a detailed timeline and holder transition plan to be published prior to migration.
This consolidation highlights a pragmatic approach to infrastructure economics in specialized Web3 sectors. By retiring a bespoke chain, DATA Network eliminates the overhead of validator maintenance and security bootstrapping, leveraging Sui’s established throughput and storage solutions instead. The rapid growth of the Trace registry to 270 million registrations underscores the demand for verifiable data provenance, yet it also reveals the limitations of single-purpose blockchains when scaling requires robust, general-purpose infrastructure rather than niche consensus mechanisms.
From an institutional adoption perspective, the $30 million backing signals strong confidence in the synergy between AI data protocols and high-performance chains like Sui. The integration of Walrus as the default storage layer suggests a trend toward modular architectures where application-specific logic resides on optimized chains, while heavy data operations are offloaded to specialized decentralized storage networks. Stakeholders should monitor the transition plan for token holders, as migrating assets and smart contracts from a retired chain involves complex technical and governance challenges that could impact user trust and liquidity during the switch.
