XRP's commodity status vote in September could unlock $63B market

An analyst's September CLARITY Act call rests on a Senate vote that has already slipped once, with XRP trading 72 percent below its peak.

XRP's path to federal commodity status now hinges on a Senate vote expected after lawmakers return Sept. 14, after the CLARITY Act missed its pre-recess window and left the token trading at $1.009, about 72 percent below its July 17, 2025 record of $3.65.

"The approval of the CLARITY Act will give XRP commodity status, unlock its institutional applications, and drive price growth," the analyst said in a post dated Aug. 17. The bill would write XRP's classification as a digital commodity into federal statute and assign oversight to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill 15-9 in May, but the chamber left for recess without holding the floor vote, which needs 60 votes. Polymarket's contract for the CLARITY Act to become law by year-end fell to about 14 percent. Spot XRP ETF inflows collapsed 93 percent to $1.01 million for the week ending Aug. 8, with net assets across the seven products slipping to $964 million.

The CFTC is moving ahead without waiting for Congress, holding its first Innovation Advisory meeting Aug. 20 with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse on the committee, alongside the chief executives of Coinbase, Nasdaq, and CME Group. Public comments close Aug. 27, and the Senate returns Sept. 14, with the Federal Reserve meeting Sept. 16.

Why XRP needs a statute, not a ruling

XRP's current legal footing comes from a courtroom, not Congress. Judge Analisa Torres ruled in July 2023 that XRP sold anonymously on exchanges was not an investment contract, while finding Ripple's direct institutional sales broke registration rules, a case that ended with a $125 million penalty. The March 17, 2026 joint SEC-CFTC interpretation sorted crypto into five categories, including digital commodities, but named no individual token and pointed back to Congress.

A ruling can be narrowed. An interpretation can be rewritten by the next commission. A statute is far harder to undo, and that gap is what keeps cautious money away from XRP. Institutional allocators, already wary of a token trading 72 percent below its cycle high, appear unwilling to increase exposure while the regulatory framework rests on an administrative opinion.

The CFTC's Aug. 20 Innovation Advisory meeting, titled "Crypto's Regulatory Evolution: From Uncertainty to Clarity," asks what the agency can fix using powers it already holds. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse sits on the committee, as do the chief executives of Coinbase, Nasdaq, and CME Group. The SEC is moving in parallel, with commissioners voting Friday on proposed crypto offering rules for token fundraising, while a separate tokenization exemption has slipped again, per Eleanor Terrett, host of the Crypto America podcast.

Not everyone reads the delay as damage. Former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo argues that innovation continues without legislation. For XRP, the sum is simple: agency rules can steady the market, but only a law can give institutions the certainty they have waited for since July 2025.

The market is pricing a binary outcome

XRP's price action reflects the regulatory vacuum. The token fell from $1.88 on Jan. 1 to $1.04 on June 30, a 45 percent loss in six months, then dropped to $0.9889 on Aug. 11, its lowest in a year. Spot XRP ETFs have recorded $1.51 billion in inflows since launching last November but hold about $933 million today, with weekly inflows collapsing from $14.86 million to $1.01 million in the week ending Aug. 8.

Derivatives traders have gone the other direction. Binance XRP futures open interest hit 435.1 million tokens on Aug. 12, a 30-day high, with total open interest across all exchanges reaching 2.67 billion XRP, a notional value exceeding $2.7 billion. Whale wallets are absorbing more than 10 million XRP per day, with large holder outflows from Binance accounting for 91 percent of total exchange outflows, the highest concentration since 2024.

Ripple's corporate success has partially decoupled from XRP's token price. The company holds more than 75 regulatory licenses worldwide, secured a MiCA license in July, and has spent roughly $4 billion on acquisitions since 2025. Its RLUSD stablecoin sits at about $1.78 billion in market capitalization across more than 40 blockchain networks, with payment corridors increasingly using RLUSD rather than XRP as a bridge currency.

The next milestones are dated. The CFTC's public comment period closes Aug. 27. The Senate returns Sept. 14 with the CLARITY Act's cloture vote pending, and the Federal Reserve meets Sept. 16, where traders price a 32 percent chance of a rate hike. Galaxy Research and CryptoQuant both expect Bitcoin to bottom between September and November, the point in a cycle where money historically rotates into altcoins. If the CLARITY Act clears its cloture vote and ETF buying returns to ten or hundreds of millions in weekly inflows, XRP could target the $1.40 to $1.60 range by the end of October. If the vote stalls again, the $1 support that has held since June 25 faces a test, with the $0.60 to $0.80 band below it having held every XRP bottom since 2017.

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