XRP holds near $1.10 as whales accumulate 70M tokens

XRP traded near $1.10 on July 16 as whale wallets accumulated 70 million tokens and US lawmakers entered a 20-day window to pass the CLARITY Act, the most consequential crypto legislation in years.

"Large holders added 70 million XRP over the past week, a sign of continued buying interest despite recent consolidation," Ali Martinez, an on-chain analyst, said.

The accumulation coincides with the XRP Ledger surpassing 8 million activated accounts, according to the XRP Ledger Foundation. Tokenization of real-world assets has become one of XRPL's fastest-growing use cases, with institutions issuing digital versions of government bonds, private credit and real estate on the network. Ripple's enterprise payment solutions and RLUSD, its US dollar-backed stablecoin, are also expanding the network's payments ecosystem.

The CLARITY Act faces roughly 20 working days before the Senate's August recess, a window both parties treat as the last realistic shot at passing comprehensive crypto regulation. Senator Cynthia Lummis called it "likely our last chance to get real legislation for digital assets on the books before 2030," while Senator Elizabeth Warren objected that the bill "as currently drafted is a ticket to sanctions evasion."

Whale Activity Points to Accumulation

The 70 million XRP accumulation by whale wallets over the past week suggests large investors expect a price breakout despite the current range-bound trading, Martinez said. From a technical standpoint, XRP continues to trade within a falling wedge pattern, a structure widely associated with bullish reversals. A decisive breakout above the wedge's upper resistance could trigger renewed upside momentum.

The XRP Ledger's evolution beyond cross-border payments into tokenization and AI-powered financial applications has broadened its addressable market. The network recently introduced an AI Hub that enables autonomous agents to transact natively on XRPL, paying for APIs and executing automated financial tasks without centralized intermediaries.

CLARITY Act Deadline Looms Over XRP

The Senate returns Monday with roughly 20 working days before its August recess. A new draft could land as soon as next week, but Democrats have not signed on. If the bill misses its August window, a shift in Congress after the midterms would likely force Democrats to demand a substantially revised text, resetting years of committee work.

XRP carries the most direct exposure of the three major tokens to the CLARITY Act's outcome, since the bill would convert its existing commodity classification from an agency ruling into permanent statute. A scenario analysis by ChatGPT projected that a CLARITY failure could push XRP to $0.90 to $1.00 initially, extending to $0.75 to $0.80 if panic selling takes hold. Conversely, if the bill advances, XRP could react more aggressively to the upside because passage would validate the regulatory narrative the token has been pricing in for years.

Not everyone treats failure as catastrophic. Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, said that even if the CLARITY Act collapses, the crypto industry will still capture "most of what it wants" through agency guidance over the next two and a half years.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.