Breaking! After $IP plunges 98%, it has been renamed to $DATA. a16z’s heavily loaded project “Qian Kun Da Nuo Yi,” and retail investors be careful of ending up as the last bagholder!

Let me tell you a story—once a star project that was continuously led-invested by a16z for three rounds. It shifted from an IP narrative to a DATA narrative, and the token changed from $IP to $DATA. Guess what—was this a last stand, or just the final fireworks?

$IP launched in February 2025, then surged to a $14.78 peak in September of the same year, before falling all the way down. On June 10, 2026, it hit a historical low of $0.275. From the peak, it dropped by about 98%. Two weeks later, on June 25, the project announced a pivot—from IP to an AI training data infrastructure. Think about it carefully.

Brand rebranding, in plain terms, means admitting the previous strategy has gone dead. Renaming and changing the token symbol are extremely costly—sunk costs in brand recognition, internal communication, external coordination, and the risks of migrating on-chain assets—all are real money. So don’t trust any flashy announcements. Ask instead: what fundamental problem forced the project to abandon the brand assets it had been accumulating?

Historical data doesn’t lie. Failed rebranding cases are everywhere:

MultiversX (formerly Elrond). After switching to a metaverse narrative, it fell by about 94%;

Golem (GNT to GLM). The price dropped 92.7% from its peak, with trading volume and development activity falling sharply;

Cortex (CTXC) and Oasis (ROSE). After the AI narrative faded, they nearly went to zero and fell by about 94%, respectively;

OMG Network spun out Boba Network. Core development was left idle, and later the market abandoned it.

Their commonality: after the name change, there were no substantive changes in product development, user acquisition, or liquidity provisioning. Narrative tweaks are not the same as business execution.

Of course, only looking at price can also be biased—bear markets interfere with judgment. Some projects see token prices drop, but on-chain execution keeps running. For example, Kaia (KLAY and FNS merged): the price fell 73%, but it showed momentum by issuing KRW stablecoins through cooperation with South Korean banks and launching a LINE mini-program DApp (35 million users in the first month, plus 7.3 million new wallets). Polygon (MATIC to POL) fell 81%, but multi-chain infrastructure like AggLayer continues operating. Render (RNDR to RENDER) and ASI may have weak market sentiment, but their AI compute scenarios are clear and technical execution has been validated.

There is only one true success benchmark: ETHLend transforming into Aave. After the rename in 2020, TVL grew steadily, the product line expanded, and user scale exploded. Today, Aave is the “central bank” of DeFi—the one setting on-chain benchmark interest rates. This is a classic case where improvements in business metrics lead to increased brand value. MakerDAO’s shift to Sky follows a similar logic: the key isn’t a token down 20%, but stronger relative performance versus the broader market and clear execution of the USDS/sUSDS stablecoins.

Now look back at the $IP/$DATA story. $IP launched in February 2025, reached a $14.78 high point in September of the same year, and then stalled. On June 10, 2026, it fell to a historical low of $0.275, and only two weeks later it announced a pivot. The timing is too coincidental—naturally, the market will suspect this is the last card to save the project.

To prove this rebranding is well-founded, in the future you must keep a close eye on three on-chain indicators:

1. Whether $DATA’s relative strength versus the broader market has improved;

2. The on-chain liquidity and trading volume trends after the token switch;

3. Whether the new AI data narrative leads to real on-chain user growth and increased settlement revenue.

Core leadership has also changed. The original narrative lead, Seung Yoon Lee, stepped back from day-to-day operations at the foundation into an advisory role, while former Chief Product Officer Andrea Muttoni took over as CEO of the DATA Foundation. Seung Yoon Lee still serves as CEO of the development company PIP Labs, but he fades from the foundation—signaling that the earlier IP narrative chapter, tied to this Korean founder and repeatedly led-invested by a16z for three rounds, has already come to an end.

Based on current data, this pivot looks more like a defensive adjustment than a long-term strategic restructure. To reverse that impression, after the token switch they must deliver actual results in liquidity, users, and settlement revenue. Otherwise, $STORY—no, $DATA—will become yet another failed rebranding case. Yesterday’s brief brilliance was just a passing cloud.

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