Goldman Sachs Exits XRP ETF as Senate Stalls CLARITY Act, Ripple Eyes Stablecoin Alliance

Goldman Sachs liquidated $154M in XRP ETF holdings, while Ripple joined a Wall Street-backed stablecoin consortium. XRP languishes near $1.09 as CLARITY Act vote slips to late July.

The disconnect between Ripple’s corporate momentum and XRP’s market performance has rarely been starker. While the company joins a Wall Street-backed stablecoin consortium, the token languishes near $1.09 — and one of the biggest institutional names in finance just quietly walked away from its XRP exposure.

Goldman Sachs liquidated its entire XRP ETF position during the first quarter of 2026, offloading holdings valued at roughly $154 million at the end of last year. Analysts interpret the move as a tactical rotation rather than a bearish verdict on the asset class itself: the bank redirected capital into crypto-equity plays such as Coinbase and Galaxy Digital, suggesting it used the XRP position primarily to facilitate client orders rather than as a long-term proprietary bet.

The retreat from a marquee institutional holder comes as XRP’s legislative catalyst slips further into the second half of the year. The CLARITY Act, which would classify tokens like XRP as commodities, had been targeted for a Senate vote around the Fourth of July. That timeline has collapsed. The Senate returns from its summer recess on July 13, but the first week is reserved for a defense bill, pushing the crypto legislation to late July or the first week of August at the earliest.

Even then, passage is far from certain — the bill needs 60 votes in the Senate, requiring at least seven Democrats to cross the aisle. Last week, negotiations faltered over an ethics clause aimed at Trump’s own crypto holdings. The market’s sensitivity to legislative progress was on display in May: XRP jumped roughly 4.5% to $1.49 on May 14 alone, triggered by a committee vote to advance the bill.

While Washington stalls, Ripple has been building its institutional ties. The company joined the Open USD Consortium, a dollar-stablecoin initiative backed by more than 140 firms including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and BlackRock. The stablecoin is slated to launch in 2026 on blockchains such as Solana and Polygon — notably, the XRP Ledger is not among the initial platforms. Ripple President Monica Long has framed the move as a bet on multi-network payments, and the firm is simultaneously developing its own stablecoin, RLUSD.

Some market observers have noted design parallels between Open USD’s reserve model and concepts from the original XRP Ledger architecture of 2012. But this is a historical comparison, not an integration announcement. The news has done little for XRP’s price, which remains hostage to broader crypto sentiment. In weak market phases, the token typically falls harder than Bitcoin, and the current downturn is no exception.

That broader weakness is also showing up in the ETF flows. For eight consecutive weeks, spot XRP ETFs had posted net inflows, with nearly $23 million arriving in the week ending June 26. But the trend reversed at the close of the second quarter, flipping to net outflows for the first time. Despite the reversal, cumulative inflows still stand at roughly $1.48 billion, and seven U.S. spot XRP ETFs manage about $1 billion in assets, with roughly 970.9 million XRP tokens held in custody.

On the XRP Ledger itself, RLUSD has begun to show traction. Independent research puts the stablecoin’s settlement volume at over $2.5 billion, with nearly $900 million attributable to direct trading between RLUSD and XRP. Yet token demand has not followed network usage.

Technically, XRP is clinging to a critical support zone. After a 3.25% gain on Friday, the token sits at $1.09, up 4.24% on the week but down roughly 10% on the month. Over the past twelve months, XRP has lost 51% of its value and remains nearly 70% below its July 2025 all-time high of $3.65. A new yearly low of $1.01 was touched on June 26, and the current price is just 7% above that level.

The $1.00 mark is now the line in the sand. Between $1.00 and $1.06, roughly 830 million XRP changed hands recently, forming a dense support zone. A daily close below $1.00 would open the door to the next floor near $0.80. To the upside, XRP must reclaim and hold the $1.18–$1.20 range to break the year-long downtrend. The relative strength index at 42.9 offers no directional signal.

Without the CLARITY Act as a near-term price driver, XRP’s trajectory is tied almost entirely to the broader crypto market. The Senate calendar suggests July will be dominated by chart patterns rather than legislative progress. A surprise passage could still spark a relief rally, but analysts caution that even a late success would likely produce a short-term bounce rather than a sustainable trend reversal unless the overall crypto environment stabilizes. For now, the token is left waiting — on Washington, on sentiment, and on whether other major institutions follow Goldman Sachs out the door.