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Camp wants to prove that it is an IP-focused chain can Working for a long period of time.
The camp mainnet was officially unfolding this morning, along with the native camp token. The team works with Crypto Infra’s company Gelato, using a rich roll-up L1 stack built in Celestia.
In addition to acting as a gas and governance token, camp tokens are expected to promote creator loyalty and AI-Agent monetization.
“We will continue to grow AI, but without the right infrastructure and technology to protect IP and creativity, we will see a less valuable relationship between AI and IP.”
Chi has a background in Tradfi and previously worked for investment banks at RBC Capital Markets and Goldman Sachs. He was then at Fima before finally starting camp in 2023.
“AI is going to eat creativity as we know, and there is no proper guardrail to protect the whole of creativity,” Chi said, reflecting the concerns that creatives have felt across games, film, visual arts and the media.
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The vision is that camps can help brands, creators and licensors establish ownership and quickly tokenize and establish ownership, helping them solve the problems that AI creates for creators and IP owners. AI agents can then license and train their content, and creators can compensate for their work use via loyalty.
Here we have a overlap between many missions with the story, the biggest competitor of the camp today.
“Most new IPs generated are all done via AI,” Camp co-founder Nirav Murthy told me. “And we assume that blockchain is the mechanism by which it takes place.”
Camp, in collaboration with a team that spans entertainment, gaming and consumer categories, includes Black Mirror (creating Crypto Plays through licensor Banijay UK), Japanese IP company Minto, and comic book creator Rob Feldman.
“Ecosystems are important at the end of the day. We don’t want to build a ghost chain,” Chi said.
He highlighted that Camp is trying to provide a reason to stick to creators, licensors and brands over the long term.
“Our spirit doesn’t want to lean towards a pay-to-play model, right? We’ve seen it unfold in code.
“And while it may be exciting for a couple of months, after that, IP holders are already not encouraged to build meaningful programs.
Camp previously raised $4 million in seed funding a year ago and $25 million in Series A funding in April.
Perhaps Mercy is the right thing, and AI will be the source of new and interesting IPs. The threat of AI is in fact more than ever for creatives who are concerned that their work has already been stolen. If a client chooses to produce AI-generated products, they will lose employment and income.
Ownership can also be complicated, and licensing often benefits larger companies and studios than individual artists (for example, they may have worked on a film but may not own the right to license their work).
