STAN, a social community platform, recently announced Photon, a universal Attention Protocol designed to reward digital users for the time, engagement, and actions they contribute across the internet.
With this, users will be rewarded when they watch videos, scroll feeds, interact with creators, participate in communities, or play games.
Photon introduces the first programmable, on-chain settlement layer for digital attention, aligning value among users, apps, games, creators, advertisers, and brands. It transforms the current attention economy, where users generate immense value yet receive nothing in return, into a shared-value system powered by verifiable engagement proofs.
Developed using insights from STAN’s collaboration with more than 150+ digital partners across gaming, content platforms, and brand ecosystems over the past three years, Photon addresses two global ecosystem gaps: users lack fair rewards for their attention, and digital businesses lack trustworthy, privacy-safe engagement signals. Photon bridges both by enabling users to earn rewards for their digital participation while allowing apps, publishers, and advertisers to access transparent and fraud-free attribution, retention, and loyalty signals.
Photon is built on the Aptos blockchain to support the demands of consumer-scale applications, delivering high-throughput validation for micro-attention signals and ultra-low latency for real-time reward settlement. Through Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), attention data is processed securely, ensuring it never leaves the protected environment. Only zero-knowledge-style proofs are recorded on the chain, preserving privacy while delivering accountability and transparency.
Nazara Games and World Cricket Championship (WCC) were announced as the first ecosystem partners integrating Photon. With this integration, WCC players will earn rewards for gameplay time, skill, and meaningful in-game interactions, while publishers benefit from verifiable engagement and transparent user attribution. Photon’s applicability extends well beyond gaming to social platforms, creator economies, and consumer digital products.
Asad Ahmed, Head of Engineering, STAN, said, “As we build the next major evolution of the internet, users must be at the center of value creation. Photon is not just a protocol; it is the foundation for a global attention ecosystem where billions of users finally share in the value they generate. Backed by Aptos Labs and secured through TEEs, Photon delivers a transparent and privacy-safe attention layer that any digital app or publisher can plug into. This is how we shift the ad-tech model and return value to the people responsible for driving the digital world forward.”
Avery Ching, Co-Founder & CEO, Aptos Labs, said, “Photon is a great example of the kind of breakthrough the Global Trading Engine was built to power, a Web3 consumer application operating at global scale. STAN’s vision for a verifiable, privacy-safe attention economy aligns perfectly with Aptos’ high-performance infrastructure. We’re thrilled to support Photon as it scales digital interactions for billions worldwide, and it’s inspiring to see the strong response here at India Blockchain Week.”
Founded in 2022 by Parth Chadha, Rahul Singh, and Nauman Mulla, STAN is a mobile native social platform for gaming creators, publishers, and communities. With tools for live audio, creator clubs, and real-time monetization, the platform makes it easy to connect, grow, and activate gaming culture.
STAN claims to have over 30 million downloads and over 1 million creators and is backed by Google AI Futures Fund, Sony Innovation Fund, Bandai Namco, Nazara Games, Reazon, Square Enix, and Aptos Labs.
STAN had raised an undisclosed amount from Sony Innovation Fund, the corporate venture capital arm of Sony Group Corporation, in its ongoing Series A funding round. The round also saw participation from Hyderabad Angels Fund (HAF VC).
STAN had also raised $8.5 million in funding from Bandai Namco Entertainment INC., Square Enix, Reazon Holdings, Google’s AI Futures Fund, Nazara and Aptos Labs.
