The clock is running on what could be the most consequential day for XRP’s regulatory status in years. The US Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to vote Thursday on the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, a bill that would enshrine XRP as a commodity under federal law. The House passed the measure with bipartisan support back in July 2025, and today’s committee vote is the last major hurdle before a full floor debate. But the margin is razor-thin: 13 Republicans against 11 Democrats, with Senator John Kennedy still on the fence.
A failure to advance the bill would be more than a procedural setback. Senator Bernie Moreno has warned that missing this window could delay any regulatory resolution until 2030. Prediction markets reflect the growing anxiety, with Polymarket odds tumbling from nearly 90% to 62% in recent days. Senator Elizabeth Warren has filed multiple amendments designed to strip large sections of the legislation, and without last-minute concessions on ethics guidelines, the 60-vote supermajority needed for final passage looks increasingly out of reach.
While Washington deliberates, two very different sets of investors are placing their bets. In South Korea, retail traders have rotated aggressively into XRP, pushing its won trading pair on Upbit to roughly $111 million in daily volume — enough to leave both Bitcoin and Ether in the dust. These are not the typical young speculators; the buying is coming from middle-aged Korean investors pulling capital out of the struggling KOSPI stock index, many of whom held XRP during the 2017-2018 bull runs.
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On the institutional side, the buildup is equally striking. Ripple’s prime brokerage arm locked in a $200 million credit line on May 11 from funds managed by Neuberger Berman, allowing clients to use Treasuries as margin collateral for crypto positions. Meanwhile, the seven US-listed XRP spot ETFs recorded net inflows of roughly $26 million at the start of this week, pushing total assets under management past $1.2 billion. Cumulative ETF inflows have exceeded $1.3 billion since the end of 2025, and the number of wallets holding significant XRP balances has hit a record high.
These bullish signals have so far failed to translate into price gains. XRP trades at $1.44, down roughly 23% year-to-date and stuck below the $1.50 resistance level that has repelled every breakout attempt since February. Negative funding rates on perpetual futures suggest that short sellers remain firmly in control, betting that the political outcome will disappoint.
A positive committee vote would likely unlock a wave of institutional capital, with analysts targeting a quick run to $1.80. A rejection, however, risks a sharp selloff that could spill over into the broader altcoin market, effectively slamming the regulatory window shut for the rest of the year and leaving XRP’s commodity status — already recognized by the SEC and CFTC in March 2026 — vulnerable to reversal by a future administration. For now, the token sits at the intersection of a retail revival, an institutional buildup, and a political decision that will define its regulatory landscape for years to come.
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