DATA Network, the project formerly known as Story Protocol, plans to retire its independent blockchain and rebuild as a protocol running natively on @SuiNetwork. Cointelegraph reported that the move is backed by a $30 million investment from the Sui Foundation. Existing $DATA tokens will convert to Sui on a one-to-one basis.
What changes for $DATA holders
According to CoinCentral, the existing token will move to Sui at a one-to-one rate, and holders will not need to exchange at a different rate. The foundations said holders' economics and governance rights would be at least equivalent to their current entitlements, and that locked and vesting tokens would carry over unchanged, Unchained reported via Yahoo Finance.
No migration date has been set. Unchained reported that the current chain will keep running until the upgrade is finished, and that the foundations plan to publish a detailed timeline and a holder plan beforehand.
The Sui Foundation said the investment gives it the largest institutional stake in the network, while PIP Labs and the DATA Foundation keep their existing holdings. PIP Labs CEO SY Lee is joining the Sui Foundation as a strategic advisor, per the same Unchained report.
A DATA Foundation spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the $30 million investment was a separate part of the partnership, rather than the sole driver of the move.
Why the project is leaving its own chain
Cointelegraph reported that the project's Trace registry, which launched in June, will join the Sui ecosystem. Walrus, a decentralized storage platform in the Sui ecosystem, will become the default storage layer for applications operated by the DATA Foundation. The partners pointed to Sui's ability to process millions of daily data registrations and Walrus's capacity to store large training datasets, according to Cryptonews.
The shift follows a change of direction earlier this year. Crypto Briefing reported that the project rebranded from Story Protocol to the DATA Foundation on June 25, 2026, and that holders of the IP token were migrated to the new DATA token on a 1:1 basis. The rebrand came with a pivot toward infrastructure for AI training data. Yahoo Finance reported at the time that the foundation said demand for AI training data had outpaced its earlier bets on entertainment and gaming.
Market reaction was positive. Cointrust reported that $DATA traded at about $0.21 on Monday, up roughly 8% over 24 hours, with a market capitalization of around $75 million.
Details on how the token will function once the standalone chain is retired remain to be published, and the promised timeline and holder transition plan will be the next thing to watch.
Sources
Cointelegraph: DATA Network to migrate to Sui, retire its own chain
Unchained: Former Story blockchain plans to shut down and rebuild its AI data registry on Sui
Crypto Briefing: Sui Foundation commits $30 million as DATA Network retires its own chain