XRP holds near $1.08 as CLARITY Act stalls, XRPL v3.3.0 nears

XRP traded near $1.08 on Binance as of Aug. 2, holding a narrow range as the Senate set aside the CLARITY Act and the XRP Ledger prepared its v3.3.0 upgrade, expected next week.

"XRPL has already proven it can support tokenized assets at scale," Jazzi Copper, head of product at RippleX, said. "Now it's time to put these assets to use: global transfers, trading, collateralizing, and settling."

The Senate shelved the CLARITY Act on July 28, redirecting floor time to a Russia sanctions bill and federal nominations, effectively foreclosing a vote before the Aug. 7 recess. The bill, which would codify XRP as a "digital commodity" rather than a security, reached the Senate floor calendar June 1 as Calendar No. 423 after the Banking Committee advanced it May 14 by a 15-9 vote. Polymarket odds for Senate passage peaked at 43 percent on July 21 before settling near 42 percent.

The legislative setback matters because Standard Chartered's $8 XRP price target is conditional on $10 billion in cumulative spot ETF inflows, with $4 billion to $8 billion of that tied specifically to CLARITY passage unlocking institutional product development. Without a floor vote before recess, that scenario is deferred until at least late 2026.

XRPL v3.3.0 brings five amendments for institutional finance

The xrpld 3.3.0 release, anticipated next week, includes five proposed amendments that would only activate after validator approval. Confidential MPT introduces native privacy for Multi-Purpose Tokens using elliptic-curve encryption and zero-knowledge proofs, letting issuers and holders keep balances and transaction amounts private while granting access to auditors or regulators when needed. The Batch amendment enables multiple transactions across different accounts to execute atomically within a single ledger, supporting delivery-versus-payment and atomic settlement workflows.

Permission Delegation allows institutions to assign limited transaction permissions without surrendering control of signing keys, giving treasury teams operational flexibility while maintaining security over sensitive issuance accounts. Sponsored Fees and Reserves lets banks, issuers, or platforms cover XRP transaction fees and account reserve requirements for users, removing the need for every participant to acquire and manage XRP before interacting with the network. Dynamic MPT allows issuers to modify token properties after issuance, including transfer fees and metadata, without creating a new token.

Each amendment requires at least 80 percent support from trusted validators for two consecutive weeks before activation. The upgrade follows the July 29 activation of fixCleanup3.2.0, which secured more than 85 percent validator support.

CLARITY Act deferral weighs on XRP's institutional path

XRP's regulatory status currently rests on agency-level rulings rather than statute. Ripple secured commodity treatment for XRP following the SEC's settled litigation in 2025 and a joint SEC-CFTC determination in March 2026 that XRP is not a security. But a future administration retains discretion to revisit that position, and institutional custodians and ETF issuers require statutory permanence before committing product infrastructure.

The XRP Ledger added approximately $2.6 billion in real-world asset value during the six months through July 26, ranking second among tracked networks for net RWA inflows behind BNB Chain at about $3 billion and ahead of Stellar at roughly $2.1 billion, according to RWA.xyz data. XRPL's combined distributed and represented RWA value reached approximately $4.38 billion.

XRP peaked near $3.40 in mid-2025 and has traced lower highs and lower lows since, with a confirmed death cross — the 50-day exponential moving average below the 200-day — still in place. The ADX reading of 11.2 reflects one of the weakest trend readings of the summer, indicating a trendless, choppy environment prone to false breakouts.

The combination of the CLARITY Act deferral and the XRPL upgrade creates a bifurcated outlook for XRP. The network's technical evolution strengthens its position for tokenization and institutional use cases, while the legislative setback delays the statutory clarity that could unlock significant ETF inflows. With the Fed's policy decision and the midterm election calendar ahead, XRP's near-term path remains tied to regulatory headlines and macro conditions rather than network fundamentals.

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