Soneium, a blockchain network that describes itself as built for “onchain entertainment”, on 28 October opened IP Vault, a product that gives eligible users exposure to a $549m royalties fund managed by the private markets firm Partners Group. The fund is tokenised by Asseto, and users enter and leave through a new dollar stablecoin called ipUSD, according to Soneium’s announcement.
The fund holds The Weeknd’s back catalogue, Discovery’s television library and more than 100,000 other royalty streams in entertainment, pharmaceuticals, brands and energy transition, with music the largest part. Soneium says the vault “will provide an estimated yield of 7-9% per annum”. That is Soneium’s estimate, not a guaranteed return.
In brief
- IP Vault opened on 28 October; the first deposit round is due to settle on 2 November.
- Soneium estimates a yield of 7-9% a year and warns that users may get back less than they put in.
- Soneium said the first round was fully subscribed in two hours but did not give its size.
How ipUSD and the vault work
Users get ipUSD at one-for-one with Startale USD (USDSC), Soneium’s native stablecoin, or with USDC.e, and can “convert back to either at any time, without waiting”, the announcement says. ipUSD is backed by Startale USD reserves and is available in the Startale App.
Depositing ipUSD into IP Vault earns shares, which wallets may show as sIPUSD. Each share is a stake in the whole vault, which holds the royalties fund alongside a reserve of ipUSD for withdrawals. A share’s value is updated once a month from the fund’s report.
The fund takes new money only once a month, so deposits are grouped into monthly rounds and “each round can settle a set total”. Money waits in a queue as ipUSD and can be cancelled until it settles. The minimum deposit is 100 ipUSD.
Exits run through a Standard Withdrawal or an Instant Withdrawal, but “availability and timing depend on liquidity and the fund’s settlement process”. Soneium Portal will not offer a market for the shares at launch, though shares can be sent to another wallet. The contracts were audited by PeckShield, according to Soneium.
Who runs the fund
Partners Group, which Soneium says has $186bn under management, “manages the fund and selects every royalty in it”. Asseto provides the tokenisation layer that links the fund to Soneium. In its launch thread on X, Soneium said the fund has 53 investments.
The vault opened at 08:05 GMT on 28 October. A little under three hours later, Soneium posted: “2 hours. That’s all it took. IP Vault is fully subscribed,” adding that the next round “will be announced soon”.
One figure does not match. A Soneium post on launch morning described the product as exposure to “a ~$2.2 billion royalties strategy”, against the $549m fund named in its announcement and earlier posts. Soneium has not explained the difference.
Risks the announcement spells out
Soneium is unusually plain about the downside. “IP Vault is not a deposit or savings product. The value of IP Vault shares can fall, and users may receive less than they deposited,” the announcement says. It is open only to “eligible users in supported jurisdictions”, which are listed in separate documentation.
Royalties are a slow asset in a fast wrapper
IP Vault puts a monthly-priced private fund behind a token that can move every second. That mismatch is the main thing to understand. The stablecoin side promises instant conversion, but the fund side settles once a month and withdrawals depend on liquidity. The ipUSD reserve is what bridges the two, and Soneium has not said how large it is.
The “fully subscribed in two hours” line is also less informative than it sounds. Because each round settles a set total and Soneium has not published that total, a quick sell-out could mean strong demand or a small round. The next round’s size will say more.
The model itself fits a wider shift. Tokenised products have moved from cash and Treasuries towards equities and private assets, from Janus Henderson’s Nasdaq-100 fund to the stocks, managed funds and credit behind most of last quarter’s growth in ARK’s count of $39bn in tokenised assets. Royalties are a natural candidate: they generate cash from the use of music, film and other rights, rather than from trading.
What to watch next
Two kinds of risk sit on top of the fund’s own. Vault contracts can fail, as the $1.01m drain of a Tranche vault on Avalanche showed. And music income can face legal shocks, with Reservoir now suing Anthropic and Suno, alleging their AI was trained on its songs. Holders of royalty tokens are exposed to both.
The markers are the first settlement on 2 November, the first monthly share value, the size of the second round and whether Soneium explains the $2.2bn figure. As with any stablecoin, from ipUSD to zerohash’s OUSD, the real test of the one-for-one conversion promise comes when withdrawals pick up.
Sources
- Soneium, “Introducing ipUSD and IP Vault: Real World Royalties, Now Accessible on Soneium”, 27 October 2026
- Soneium on X, launch thread, 27 October 2026
- Soneium on X, “The IP Vault is open”, 28 October 2026
- Soneium on X, “~$2.2 billion royalties strategy”, 28 October 2026
- Soneium on X, “IP Vault is fully subscribed”, 28 October 2026
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