Why is XRP underperforming other majors this week?

The delay of the CLARITY Act cloture vote to September removed the near-term regulatory catalyst that had been driving XRP-specific demand. Spot ETF inflows collapsed 79% since May and printed their first material outflow this week, per Cryptonews and crypto.news.

What is the XRPL privacy amendment and why does it matter?

XRP Ledger version 3.3.0 introduces a confidential-transfer amendment that lets institutions encrypt token balances and transfer amounts while giving issuers, auditors, and regulators selective access. It is aimed at unlocking over $530 million in tokenized real-world assets already on XRPL, per CoinDesk and crypto.news.

Where is XRP's key invalidation level?

A weekly close below $0.98 breaks the pattern of higher lows and invalidates the accumulation thesis suggested by falling exchange reserves. Above, a reclaim of $1.20 on rising volume reopens $1.41 as the next resistance.

Should the 100 sentiment score be read as bullish?

Not on its own. A max sentiment print against a bleeding tape typically signals crowd positioning that has not yet repriced adverse news, and historically resolves through a further leg lower before flow turns.

XRP: Privacy Amendment Meets $1 Defense as CLARITY Act Slips

On-chain flows

The bullish thread on-chain is the exchange reserve profile. Per the Cryptomat entity summary, XRP exchange balances have bottomed near 2.55 billion tokens, a level that historically compresses float and sets up short-covering conditions if a catalyst hits. XRPL activity has surged roughly 300% on unclear drivers, and the ledger holds around $3.6 billion in tokenized real-world assets excluding stablecoins.

The bearish thread is the ETF wrapper. Institutional demand, expressed through the US spot product, has cooled hard. A 79% inflow collapse since May combined with the first outflow print is not a rounding error, it is a positioning shift. When the two disagree, exchange-reserve tightening tends to matter more for a short violent move, ETF flow tends to matter more for the trend. Right now, the trend read wins.

XRP is defending the $1 handle after dipping to $1.01 this week, with a bounce to $1.04 that looks more like exhaustion than conviction. The setup is unusually forked: XRPL validators are moving on a first-ever privacy amendment aimed at a $530 million tokenized asset market, while spot ETF inflows have collapsed 79% since May as the CLARITY Act stalls in the Senate ahead of a September cloture vote. The token that Ripple built into an institutional payments pitch is now trading like a policy proxy.

By Elena Stojanović· AI-assisted· Regulation correspondent

Market context

XRP is trading around $1.04 on Friday after briefly cracking to $1.01 earlier in the week, per BeInCrypto's price wrap. That is a different tape than the $1.39 print the Cryptomat entity desk was working off a few days ago, and the gap matters: the token has round-tripped the entire post-CLARITY-optimism bid in under a month. Standard Chartered still carries an $8 XRP call by 2026 and Ripple continues to market its Treasury platform with claims of 13,000 bank connections. None of that is showing up in spot.

What is showing up is policy risk. The Senate's failure to move the CLARITY Act to cloture this week pushed the vote to September, and the market took the hint. Cryptonews reports XRP ETF inflows have collapsed 79% since May, and crypto.news flagged the first meaningful outflow from a spot XRP product on Thursday at $3.58 million. That is small in absolute terms. It is large as a signal, because it is the first time the ETF cohort has been a net seller since launch.

Technical setup

The chart reads as a fight for the $1 psychological floor. XRP has now tested and held $1.01 once, and the bounce to $1.04 has come on unremarkable volume. There is nothing in the tape that looks like a demand shock. The prior Cryptomat frame around $1.41 as the wall to reclaim is still valid, but the more immediate battle is $1.10 to $1.20, the shelf where the CLARITY-Act rally originated and where trapped longs sit.

Range-bound is the honest label. A weekly close under $0.98 breaks the pattern of higher lows and hands control to sellers. A reclaim of $1.20 on rising volume reopens $1.41 as the next magnet. In between, XRP is a policy trade dressed up as a chart.

On-chain flows

XRP: Privacy Amendment Meets $1 Defense as CLARITY Act Slips

Market context

Technical setup

On-chain flows

Sentiment

Scenarios

Risks

Disclaimer

Key takeaways

Frequently asked

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