XRP falls 44% YTD to $1.03 as CLARITY Act stalls

XRP closed the week at $1.09, its weakest weekly close since 2024, and was the only top-10 token to finish in the red.

XRP fell 3.47% to $1.03, its lowest weekly close since 2024, as the stalled CLARITY Act, shelved until September, removed the token's only near-term trigger.

"XRP's positioning looks patient in its own right, with order flow staying large even as volume metrics turn neutral — quiet absorption rather than capitulation or a confirmed breakout," Iliya Kalchev, analyst at Nexo, said.

The underperformance stands out against a green week across the rest of the top 10. Bitcoin added 3.63%, Ethereum 3.90%, Solana 5.87%, and even Dogecoin managed 0.70%. XRP went the other way, down 3.47%, leaving it the worst year-to-date performer in the top 10 at minus 43.94% with a market cap of $64.5 billion. Derivatives have dominated trading, with daily futures volume running at roughly 10 times spot volume, according to Coinglass data. XRP-focused exchange-traded funds drew net inflows for a fourth straight week, but new capital collapsed roughly 93% week-over-week to about $1 million, per SoSoValue.

Everything now hinges on the $1.00 mark. On-chain cost-basis data shows more than 830 million XRP concentrated between $1.00 and $1.06, the densest cluster near the current price, while little supply sits between $1.00 and $0.80. A clean break of the dollar could see price move quickly through empty territory. The Senate is not expected to vote on the CLARITY Act until mid-September at the earliest, and Bitcoin must reclaim $65,500 for any altcoin recovery to gain traction.

Why XRP lagged while peers rallied

When an asset falls during a week in which its entire peer group rises, the explanation is usually specific to that asset. XRP's price has spent years reacting to legal and legislative headlines rather than network usage. A favorable court ruling or regulatory milestone produces a violent spike, the spike fades within weeks, and the token settles back into a range. The current stall of the CLARITY Act in the US Senate, shelved until at least September, has removed the one near-term event a large part of the holder base was positioned for.

The broader market context matters too. Bitcoin peaked at $126,198 in October 2025 and now trades near $65,000, roughly 49 percent below that high. Total crypto market capitalization has fallen from a peak above $4.2 trillion to around $2.3 trillion. In that context, XRP being down 43.94 percent is at the harsher end of a spectrum nearly every asset sits on. Only TRON and Hyperliquid are positive on the year.

The levels that decide the next move

XRP's weekly RSI dropped below 30 in June, only the second oversold reading on the weekly chart in 12 years. The first was the 2022 bear market bottom near $0.29, which eventually preceded a 1,100 percent move — but the rally did not begin until November 2024, nearly two and a half years after the signal fired. Oversold does not mean imminent.

Three things will decide the next move: whether the $1.00 to $1.06 support band holds on a weekly closing basis, whether the CLARITY Act gets a Senate floor date in September, and whether Bitcoin can reclaim $65,500 and then $68,500. Until at least two of those resolve positively, the base case for XRP is continued consolidation in the low dollar range, with risk skewed toward a test of the psychological $1.00 level.

Ripple as a company remains well capitalized and continues to build out payments and stablecoin infrastructure. But there is a real gap between what Ripple the business is doing and what XRP the token has priced in, and that gap is what makes some allocators reluctant to hold it through drawdowns.

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