XRP beat bitcoin gains as CLARITY Act advanced, but a real bullrun still needs Congress
XRP beat bitcoin gains as Clarity Act advanced, but a real bullrun still needs Congress
The token jumped 5% after a Senate committee moved the market-structure bill forward, reviving hopes that legal clarity can pull deeper institutional money into XRP products.
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- XRP jumped above $1.50 after the Senate Banking Committee advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a key step toward clearer U.S. rules for crypto markets.
- The bill, which still faces several legislative hurdles, would give institutions a more defined framework for custody, trading, market making and ETF allocation of digital assets including XRP.
- Growing institutional use of the XRP Ledger for tokenized assets, DeFi activity and spot XRP ETF inflows underscores rising demand even as the token remains below its 2025 highs.
XRP traders got the regulatory headline they had been waiting for on Thursday after the Senate Banking Committee advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in a 15-9 vote, moving one of Washington’s main crypto market-structure bills closer to a full Senate fight.
XRP traded zoomed above $1.5 after the vote, adding 5% over a 24-hour period and 7.6% on the week, making it one of the stronger performers among major tokens such as bitcoin and ether, which have added under 3% for the week.
The outsized reaction came as few large crypto assets have been shaped as directly by U.S. regulatory uncertainty as XRP.
The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, setting off years of exchange suspensions, institutional hesitation and legal noise around whether XRP could trade freely in U.S. markets. A 2023 ruling from Judge Analisa Torres helped clear secondary-market XRP trading from being treated as securities transactions, but the broader market never got what large allocators usually want – federal legislation that is harder for a future regulator to reinterpret.
The CLARITY bill would put more digital assets under a defined market-structure regime and give institutions a cleaner framework for custody, trading, market making and ETF allocation.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the committee vote “the moment” in a post on X, saying the industry deserves “the same rules and protections as every other asset class.”
The Senate Banking Committee is putting in the work as it moves the Clarity Act forward… incredible leadership!
Millions of Americans are already in this market. Ripple stands behind this bill because they deserve the same rules and protections as every other asset class. If… https://t.co/orvdQHDbEz
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) May 13, 2026
The Senate Banking version still has to merge with the Agriculture Committee version, pass the full Senate, survive House reconciliation and reach the president’s desk. Senator Cynthia Lummis has said lawmakers have agreement on most of the bill, while Senator Elizabeth Warren has objected to parts of the process. The Memorial Day recess gives the current push a practical deadline.
Optimism and demand for XRP stems from several fundamental factors directly impacted both the token and its closely-related firm Ripple.
Alexis Sirkia, an early XRP and Ethereum market maker who now leads decentralized clearing firm Yellow Network told CoinDes that the “the real story of XRP in mid-2026 will not be its consolidating price, but the quiet, almost imperceptible rewiring of global finance.”
“With legal clouds lifted and institutional capital proving remarkably sticky, the XRP Ledger is transforming into a compliance-grade tokenization and settlement layer, speaking the precise language that institutional capital does,” Sirkia added.
The XRP Ledger, the underlying network of xrp tokens, has recorded a bump in activity in the past few months. Tokenized real-world assets on the chain have crossed $3 billion, placing it among the leading non-Ethereum networks for institutional tokenization.
Last week’s Ripple-JPMorgan-Mastercard-Ondo pilot processed a tokenized U.S. Treasury redemption in under five seconds, demonstrating the chain can bridge public blockchain rails with traditional interbank settlement.
Meanwhile, the broader DeFi ecosystem built around XRP through bridged representations has grown to over $560 million in combined value locked, led by Flare and Doppler Finance.
U.S.-listed spot XRP ETFs drew $25.8 million in net inflows earlier this week in their largest daily haul since early January, bringing cumulative inflows to $1.35 billion.
The inflows followed Ripple’s closing of a $200 million debt facility for its Ripple Prime brokerage and a successful pilot tokenized U.S. Treasury settlement on the XRP Ledger with JPMorgan, Mastercard and Ondo Finance.
As such, XRP remains well below its 2025 highs, and the $1.50 area continues to act as the level bulls need to reclaim.
The committee vote gave XRP a catalyst. Full legal clarity is still the trade.
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CEX Volumes Drop to Lowest Since September 2024 as RWA Perps Hit Record High
CEX Volumes Drop to Lowest Since September 2024 as RWA Perps Hit Record High
In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.
In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.
Why it matters:
In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.
Forget max pain theory. Bitcoin is well below the $72,000 magnet going into $10 billion options expiry
MemeCore’s M token suddenly crashes 80% with no clear trigger
Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin goes live in Japan after regulatory approval
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