Senate Banking Committee Moves CLARITY Act Forward; XRP Breaks Above $1.50
A Senate Banking Committee vote on Thursday delivered a fresh political signal on crypto regulation and briefly boosted XRP. The panel advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act) by a 15-9 vote, one of Washington's most significant proposals to reshape crypto market structure.
XRP climbed above $1.50 following the news, rising about 5% over 24 hours and 7.6% for the week. That outpaced bitcoin and ether, each up less than 3% on the week.
Why XRP moved more than other tokens
XRP has been among the digital assets most exposed to U.S. regulatory uncertainty. The SEC's 2020 lawsuit against Ripple led to years of exchange suspensions, institutional hesitation and debate over whether XRP should be treated as a security. In 2023, Judge Analisa Torres narrowed the SEC's case by finding that secondary-market XRP trading was not subject to securities treatment, yet many institutions have stayed cautious in the absence of a clear federal framework.
What the CLARITY Act is designed to do
The CLARITY Act seeks to establish that framework. The bill would place more digital assets under a defined market-structure regime and spell out rules around custody, trading, market making and ETF allocation$$the type of guardrails large allocators typically require. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the committee vote "the moment," writing on X that the industry should have "the same rules and protections as every other asset class."
Next steps in Congress
Committee approval is consequential but far from final. The Senate Banking version must be reconciled with a version from the Agriculture Committee, pass the full Senate, navigate House reconciliation and ultimately reach the president. Senator Cynthia Lummis said lawmakers agree on most of the text, while Senator Elizabeth Warren has raised objections to parts of the process. With Congress heading into the Memorial Day recess, supporters face a practical window to maintain momentum.
On-chain and institutional tailwinds
The regulatory lift arrives as investors point to tangible developments around XRP and Ripple:
- Activity on the XRP Ledger has increased, and the network now hosts more than $3 billion in tokenized real-world assets, ranking it among the leading non-Ethereum networks for institutional tokenization.
- A pilot involving Ripple, JPMorgan, Mastercard and Ondo Finance reportedly redeemed tokenized U.S. Treasuries in under five seconds, highlighting the potential to link public blockchain rails with traditional interbank settlement.
- DeFi activity connected to XRP via bridged representations has grown to about $560 million in total value locked, led by projects including Flare and Doppler Finance.
- U.S.-listed spot XRP ETFs took in $25.8 million of net inflows earlier this week, the largest single-day total since January, lifting cumulative inflows to $1.35 billion.
- Ripple recently completed a $200 million debt facility for its Ripple Prime brokerage, signaling continued institutional traction.
Some industry figures argue these are more than short-term price drivers. Alexis Sirkia, an early Ripple and Ethereum market maker who now leads decentralized clearing firm Yellow Network, told CoinDesk that "the real story of XRP in mid-2026 will not be its consolidating price, but the quiet, almost imperceptible rewiring of global finance," adding that the ledger is becoming "a compliance-grade tokenization and settlement layer" that could appeal to institutional capital.
Legal certainty remains the key variable
Even with the committee vote and recent business milestones, XRP is still well below its 2025 highs. The $1.50 zone remains a critical level that bulls need to reclaim decisively to sustain momentum. The CLARITY Act provided a near-term catalyst, but many market participants are likely to treat full federal legal clarity$$a durable ruleset passed by Congress and signed into law$$as the condition for a lasting bull run.
