XRP Holds Near $1.38 as Clarity Act Debate Drives Regulatory Focus

Ripple (XRP) traded in a tight range around $1.38 on Saturday UTC, as traders weighed a cooling tape against a potentially market-defining U.S. regulatory catalyst: the pending 'Clarity Act'. While XRP has edged lower over the past 24 hours, it remains modestly positive on a one-month view—keeping attention fixed less on charts and more on Washington.

According to CoinMarketCap data cited in the original report, XRP was changing hands at roughly $1.38 early Saturday UTC. Spot trading volume over the last 24 hours was about $1.162 billion, down nearly 30% day-on-day, a drop often associated with 'wait-and-see' positioning ahead of binary macro headlines. XRP’s market capitalization stood near $85.47 billion, giving it about 3.3% of the total crypto market and ranking it fourth by market value. Its fully diluted valuation (FDV) was estimated at roughly $138.3 billion.

Short-term performance metrics reflected slight downside pressure—about -0.05% over one hour, -0.24% over 24 hours, and -2.71% over seven days—while broader windows were more constructive, with a +5.83% return over 30 days and +1.61% over 60 days. The 90-day figure, however, remained in the red at -12.84%, underscoring that XRP’s recent recovery has not fully reversed its quarterly drawdown.

The central narrative, market participants say, is the U.S. Congress debate over the 'Clarity Act'—legislation designed to formalize the boundary between digital assets treated as securities and those treated as commodities. For tokens like XRP, that distinction carries direct consequences for exchange listings, broker-dealer participation, custody frameworks, and the willingness of large institutions to deploy capital at scale.

Decentralized prediction market platform Poly Markets was cited as placing a 75% probability on the Clarity Act passing at some point in 2026. Analysts tracking the bill argue that approval could increase the likelihood XRP ultimately falls under a commodity-style regime, potentially lowering legal friction for 'institutional demand' and broadening the set of compliant market participants able to trade, custody, or utilize XRP-linked products.

But the asymmetry cuts both ways. If the bill stalls or fails, the report notes that some commentators see room for a sharp repricing tied to renewed regulatory ambiguity, with downside scenarios reaching as low as $0.53—roughly a 62% decline from current levels. Even if such projections are highly sensitive to assumptions, they reflect a widely shared view that 'regulatory overhang' remains the dominant risk factor for XRP’s medium-term trajectory.

On the technology front, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) ecosystem is also watching developments around a proposed privacy layer known as 'Ghost Protocol'. The initiative is described as leveraging 'zero-knowledge proofs'—cryptographic techniques that can prove a statement is true without revealing the underlying information—to enhance transaction privacy while preserving compliance controls that institutional users typically require.

Privacy tooling has become a nuanced theme for institutions: large funds and corporates often seek confidentiality around trade execution and treasury operations, yet must also satisfy auditability and regulatory reporting obligations. Proponents argue that if Ghost Protocol can balance those constraints, it could improve XRPL’s competitiveness for enterprise payment and settlement use cases. For now, however, the report cautions that no official development roadmap or launch timetable has been provided, leaving adoption questions open.

XRP’s supply profile remains another point of ongoing investor scrutiny. Circulating supply was reported at about 61.796 billion XRP—roughly 61.8% of the stated maximum of 100 billion. A significant portion of the remaining supply is held in escrow by Ripple Labs and released periodically, a structure critics say can introduce longer-term 'dilution risk'. The gap between current market cap and the reported FDV—about 1.6x—highlights how supply expansion assumptions can materially change valuation framing.

Technically, the market continues to treat the $1.38 area as a consolidation zone. The report points to $1.40 as a near-term resistance level and $1.30 as a key support line, with volume recovery likely required to validate any directional move. In the near term, traders are watching three variables in tandem: the congressional calendar for the Clarity Act, any formal communications from Ripple Labs, and broader risk sentiment led by Bitcoin (BTC).

For XRP, the weeks ahead may be less about incremental on-chain milestones and more about whether U.S. lawmakers deliver the 'regulatory clarity' that markets have repeatedly demanded. If momentum builds around a workable classification framework, XRP could see renewed interest from institutions seeking legally durable exposure; if not, the token may remain vulnerable to abrupt volatility tied to policy headlines.