SEC delays decision on XRP and Dogecoin ETF | Story empowers AI music IP

Source: Cointelegraph Original: "SEC Delays Decision on XRP and Dogecoin ETF | Story Empowers AI Music IP"

On May 21, BTC and ETH continue to fluctuate in a sideways trend; the SEC delays the approval of XRP and Dogecoin ETFs; Story empowers the Virtuals ecosystem AI music platform MUSIC, allowing Twitter hot posts to generate on-chain music IP; After the Pectra upgrade: active users on Ethereum DEX significantly rebound by 73%, but growth still faces challenges.

Overview of the Cryptocurrency Market

digging for popular tokens

Swarms SWARMS (+ 2.40%, Circulating Market Cap 31.18 million USD)

According to Gate.io market data, the current price of Swarms token is $0.03136, with a 24-hour increase of 2.4%.

Swarms (SWM) is a decentralized computing network built on artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology, aimed at addressing the high costs and low efficiency of distributed computing resources. Its core vision is to become the world's leading decentralized AI computing platform by integrating globally idle computing resources, blockchain incentive mechanisms, and AI optimization algorithms to provide users with efficient and low-cost computing services. Swarms addresses industry challenges such as waste of computing resources, data privacy, and centralized computing power monopoly through its core products, offering developers, enterprises, and researchers secure and scalable decentralized computing solutions.

SWM tokens may be used to pay for computing services, participate in governance, or stake for rewards. In terms of news, the AI agent protocol Swarms tweeted that its enterprise-level Python client for the API is now online, which has production-level capabilities to bring multi-agent AI system functionalities into Python applications, achieving enterprise-level reliability and performance.

LQTY Liquity (+ 7.18%, circulating market cap 92,248,300 USD)

According to Gate market data, the current price of the LQTY token is $0.9437, with a 24-hour increase of 7.18%.

Liquity (LQTY) is a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform built on artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology, aimed at addressing the high costs and complexities of traditional lending markets. Its core vision is to become the leading decentralized lending protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem, providing users with 0% interest loans and an efficient stablecoin lending experience through a fee mechanism adjusted by smart contracts and algorithms. Liquity tackles industry challenges such as high-interest loans, governance complexity, and centralized risks through its core products (such as the LUSD stablecoin, Stability Pool, and LQTY staking mechanism), offering users safe, low-cost lending services and passive income opportunities.

On the news front, the centralized lending platform Liquity tweeted that Liquity V2 has been re-launched on the Ethereum mainnet. Users can borrow ETH and LST (such as Lido Finance's wstETH and Rocket Pool's rETH) with a maximum LTV by customizing interest rates; BOLD stablecoin provides yields and supports instant conversion to ETH and LST. Liquity V2 has reached licensing agreements with nearly 20 friendly forks on EVM chains, including Felix Protocol, QuillFi, and OrkiFi, with fork projects rewarding a portion of tokens to BOLD stable pool depositors and liquidity providers.

Alpha Interpretation

SEC delays decision on XRP and Dogecoin ETF

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on May 20 that it has postponed the deadline for deciding on the ETF proposals for the XRP trust funds submitted by 21Shares and Grayscale, as well as the Grayscale Dogecoin trust fund. The SEC stated in the filing that this move is based on legal and policy issues involved in these proposals and emphasized that it does not represent a conclusion by the Commission on the relevant issues. At the same time, the SEC also delayed its decision on Bitwise's proposal for an Ethereum ETF that allows staking.

The SEC's delay in deciding on the XRP and Dogecoin ETFs reflects its cautious attitude towards emerging crypto assets, emphasizing compliance, anti-fraud measures, and investor protection. This indicates that other projects applying for ETFs need to pay more attention to the transparency of legal frameworks and market maturity, such as providing detailed custody arrangements and price tracking mechanisms. Additionally, XRP has a clearer regulatory background due to the resolution of the Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit (ending in March 2025), which may give it an advantage over meme coins like Dogecoin in the approval process. Other projects should learn from XRP, strengthen communication with regulators, and optimize their proposal structures.

Story empowers the Virtuals ecosystem AI music platform MUSIC, where Twitter hot posts can generate on-chain music IP.

Programmable IP Protocol Story announced that it will serve as the infrastructure partner for the Virtuals ecological AI music platform MUSIC, officially supporting the launch of the AI music IP minting feature Bangers. Users can generate and mint on-chain music IP with just one click through trending posts on Twitter. By mentioning @musicbyvirtuals in a tweet and attaching prompts, users can have AI automatically generate music or MV, and realize rights confirmation, registration, and tokenization through Story. Each Banger token has a built-in 1% transaction tax, used to incentivize original IP holders, content creators, and distributors. Story provides complete on-chain rights confirmation and revenue-sharing support in this mechanism.

This collaboration is not only a demonstration of the programmable IP capabilities of the Story protocol, but also a practical application in the field of digital copyright authentication and revenue sharing. The integration with the MUSIC platform expands the application boundaries of Story and is expected to attract more creators and IP projects.

For the Virtuals ecosystem, the launch of the AI music platform MUSIC and its Bangers feature has significantly enhanced its content generation and community interaction capabilities. By lowering the barriers to music creation, ordinary users can also participate in the generation and ownership of AI music IP, making it possible for the Virtuals ecosystem to attract a large number of non-professional users and further expand its influence. The collaboration with Sony and Tencent's joint venture label Liquid State, as well as the integration of over 1,000 AI agents, demonstrates the ambition of the Virtuals ecosystem in driving the large-scale generation and distribution of community-driven music IP.

After the Pectra upgrade: Active users on the Ethereum DEX have significantly rebounded by 73%, but growth still faces challenges.

The Ethereum decentralized exchange (DEX) has seen a significant rebound in user activity recently. As of May 20, the daily active users reached approximately 64,000, a 73% increase from the low of May 4, marking a new high in three months. This indicates that user trading interest is warming up, possibly related to the rise in ETH prices and improved market sentiment. Uniswap dominates the space, contributing around $13 billion in trading volume and accounting for 97% of user activity.

However, despite active users, the total monthly DEX trading volume remained at $15 billion, suggesting that trading was dominated by small orders and that institutional or large transactions had limited participation. At the same time, according to Glassnode data, the Pectra upgrade that went live on May 7 did not significantly improve network engagement: the number of new addresses decreased by 1.8% from the peak of the year, and the number of resurrected addresses decreased by 8.4%, indicating that the growth of new users and the return of old users were not significantly stimulated by the upgrade. However, the churn rate decreased by 8.5%, indicating an improvement in existing user retention.

Overall, the surge in DEX user activity reflects the market's short-term enthusiasm for the Ethereum ecosystem, but the trading volume structure reveals insufficient institutional participation, which somewhat limits the overall expansion of the ecosystem. The deflationary effect and improved user retention brought by the Pectra upgrade lay the foundation for long-term development, but its appeal to new and revived users is limited in the short term. In the future, the continued growth of the Ethereum ecosystem will depend on the adaptation speed of DApps to the upgrades, the adoption rate of Layer-2 solutions, and the alignment with macro market cycles. If market sentiment continues to improve and the technical optimization process accelerates, DEX activity and network participation are expected to increase synchronously; otherwise, the market pattern of 'retail enthusiasm and institutional coldness' may still persist in the short term.

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