Ripple’s Regulatory Gambit Collides With Geopolitical Shock as XRP Price Teeters

Ripple files SEC proposal to cut stablecoin capital haircut to zero and classify XRP as readily marketable, while RLUSD surges past $1.7B but XRP price crashes below $1.30 amid geopolitical selloff.

Ripple Labs has fired a volley across the SEC’s bow, filing a technical proposal with the agency’s Crypto Task Force on May 28 that aims to rewrite the capital-treatment rulebook for stablecoins and elevate XRP to regulatory parity with Bitcoin and Ethereum. The timing is anything but accidental: the company’s own stablecoin RLUSD is swelling in market cap, yet XRP’s spot price has just been smashed below the psychologically crucial $1.30 threshold by a sudden geopolitical storm.

A zero-haircut demand with bite

At the heart of Ripple’s submission lies a challenge to Rule 15c3-1, which currently forces broker-dealers to apply a 2% capital haircut to stablecoins used as collateral. Drawing on five-year volatility data, Ripple argues that figure is mathematically excessive. Its demand: a 0% haircut for stablecoins engineered with a direct mint-and-burn mechanism – specifically its own RLUSD and Circle’s USDC. Simultaneously, the company is pressing for XRP to be classified as “readily marketable,” which would put it on equal regulatory footing with Bitcoin and Ethereum in broker-dealer capital calculations.

The proposal is audacious in scope, threatening to recalibrate crypto regulation across the board if adopted.

RLUSD hits new highs even as XRP price crumbles

Ripple’s offensive comes against a backdrop of aggressive stablecoin scaling. On the same day as the filing, RLUSD’s market capitalisation surpassed $1.7 billion, fully backed by U.S. Treasuries and cash held at BNY Mellon. The secondary article puts the token’s total supply above $1.8 billion, reflecting continued accumulation by major banks for institutional settlements.

But the price of Ripple’s native token tells a starkly different story. XRP slumped to an intraday low of $1.265 on May 28, its cheapest since February, as reports of U.S. military strikes against Iranian installations near the Strait of Hormuz triggered a broad flight from risk assets. The crypto market saw nearly $1 billion in liquidations over 24 hours, with 93% of that hitting long positions. XRP ended the day around $1.30, down 2.10% on the session. Over the week the loss widened to 4.76%, and since the start of 2026 the token has shed 29% – the secondary article calculates a slightly higher 30.73%, reflecting a different closing reference.

The breakdown took XRP’s market cap below $80 billion to roughly $79.7 billion. Technical exhaustion is visible: the distance to the 200-day moving average of $1.67 stands at 22.12%.

Whale activity adds to the selling pressure

Large holders accelerated the slide. Within one hour, roughly 64 million XRP changed hands from big addresses, pushing the price from $1.3267 to $1.2931. Spot-XRP ETFs recorded no net inflows during this phase, underscoring institutional caution. Trade volume jumped 42.7% to $2.45 billion as nervous participants rushed to reposition.

The primary article notes that large transactions over $1 million have dropped 57% over the past nine days, and net ETF inflows for May stand at a modest $118 million – present, but hardly a rescue package. The message from institutions: they are waiting for regulatory clarity, which Ripple has now formally requested.

Network activity defies the price stress

On-chain metrics tell a different narrative. Active addresses on the XRP Ledger jumped 30% on May 28, suggesting real utility is not collapsing with the price. The tokenised real-world-asset (RWA) ecosystem on the ledger has swelled to a record $3.53 billion, with RWA volume reaching over $404 million, a 78% increase since January.

Meanwhile, Ripple is building out the infrastructure to match its regulatory ambitions. The network activated the fixCleanup3_1_3 upgrade on May 27, a technical refresh that automatically removes expired NFT offers, corrects trust-line limits, fixes booking errors in the lending protocol, and improves payout mechanics for single-asset vaults. Behind the scenes, Ripple has rebranded its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road as Ripple Prime and filed new trademarks for prime brokerage, securities lending, and clearing services – a clear signal that the company intends to become a full-spectrum institutional finance platform, not merely a payments provider.

The $1.30 line in the sand

For now, all eyes are on whether XRP can reclaim the $1.30 support. A swift recovery would neutralise the technical damage. Failure to do so opens the door to the next major floor near $1.10. Ripple has handed regulators the blueprint for a new era – but the market is still voting with its feet.