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XRP dropped about 10% to $1.29 after the U.S. Senate blocked the CLARITY Act, the steepest fall among major crypto assets.
WRITTEN BYShiraz Jagati
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Published:Sep 16, 2026, 5:30 AM EDT
Key Takeaways
- XRP slid roughly 10% to $1.29 on Sept. 16, against a 2.2% drop in <a href="https://xpertsstudio.com/bis-study-finds-bitcoin-transfer-estimates-can-vary-by-6x/” title=”BIS Study Finds Bitcoin Transfer Estimates Can Vary by 6x”>bitcoin and 4% in solana.
- A March 17 SEC-CFTC release named 18 assets digital commodities, XRP among them, binding both agencies
- The Senate’s 49-50 cloture vote leaves rulemaking to regulators, with no market structure law until 2027.
The Steepest Drop on the Board
XRP seems to have bore the brunt of the recent market bloodbath the worst, with the token falling to $1.29, a slide of roughly 7.5% to 10% depending on the measurement window, against bitcoin’s 2.2% decline, ether’s 3.6% and solana’s 4%.
The percentage differences are important because XRP had been the market’s designated winner going into the vote, climbing by as much as 9.8% in the run-up to the vote, eventually peaking at $1.49 on Sept. 14. Moreover, options activity also jumped 350%, briefly overtaking both bitcoin and ether.
Amidst all of these developments, Ripple’s argument was a little confounding, not engaging with the price dip at all. Instead, the firm’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty opined:
Ripple and XRP stand on settled ground.
His case rested on two points:
- The first is the 2023 federal court ruling that programmatic XRP sales on exchanges were not securities transactions.
- The second is more recent and more consequential. On March 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a joint interpretive release naming 18 crypto assets as digital commodities rather than securities, XRP among them alongside BTC, ETH and SOL. Unlike staff speeches, that interpretation is a formal agency action binding on both regulators.
Lastly, Ripple’s corporate account called the failed vote “a tremendous missed opportunity” while making the same point as its CLO, i.e. the need for clear rules has not gone away, and neither has the company’s role in writing them.
Decoding XRP Fall and the Road Ahead
When one asset absorbs the most leveraged upside bets ahead of a binary event, it accrues the most forced selling when the event goes the wrong way. Bitcoin’s price fell under $75,000 for the first time since Aug. 20 in the same window, but from a base of far less concentrated speculation.
Also, it bears mentioning that SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig launched Project Crypto as a joint effort in January to harmonize oversight, and the March interpretation was its first major output. Former CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo said after the vote that the two chairs are determined to put frameworks in place under U.S. law rather than watch activity move offshore.
For XRP, that is a slower path with a lower ceiling. Rulemaking can be challenged, delayed and reversed in a way an act of Congress cannot.
And, even though Ripple’s ground may well be settled, the market’s is not, and $1.29 is where the reading currently sits (whether backers like it or not).
XRP Rallies 9.8% on CLARITY Hopes; Prediction Markets Aren’t Buying It
XRP climbed as much as 9.8% in the day ahead of Tuesday’s Senate CLARITY Act cloture vote before cooling to…
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Source: news.bitcoin.com