XRP’s $1.17 Sink Meets a Fed Deadline and Senate Vote — But Record ETF Inflows and Whale Accumulation Hint at a Reversal

XRP trades near $1.17, down 37% YTD, but record ETF inflows and whale accumulation signal reversal as Fed and Senate decisions approach.

The disconnect between XRP’s sliding price and its accelerating fundamental developments has rarely been wider. While the token has tumbled to a 52-week low, two Washington deadlines are now converging that could abruptly resolve the tension. A federal executive order mandates the Fed decide within 90 days whether to grant Krypto firms master account access, and the Senate is poised to vote on the CLARITY Act — a bill that would classify XRP as a commodity.

At the same time, institutional investors are betting big on the opposite direction, pouring a record monthly sum into spot XRP ETFs even as the broader crypto market bleeds.

XRP closed Friday at $1.17, down 2.78% on the day and 17.40% over the past month. The year-to-date loss stands at 37.80%. Technically, the picture is brutal: the token trades 15.58% below its short-term moving average and 28.24% below its 200-day line. The relative strength index has plunged to 23.2, deep into oversold territory. On June 5, XRP hit a 19-month low of $1.08, and the current price remains near that floor.

Yet beneath the surface, signs of accumulation are mounting. More than 25 million XRP have been withdrawn from exchanges in recent days. Wallets holding at least 10,000 XRP climbed to a record 332,230 addresses — a pattern that historically suggests whales are positioning for a move higher rather than capitulating. Exchange liquidity remains thin, meaning relatively small orders can still produce outsized price swings.

The ETF channel tells a similar story. Spot XRP products attracted net inflows of $131.94 million in May, their best month since the November 2025 launch. Cumulative inflows now total $1.43 billion. The contrast with the rest of the market is stark: Bitcoin ETFs saw outflows of roughly $2.43 billion over the same period, and Ethereum funds lost about $540.88 million. Issuers include Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, Canary Capital and 21Shares.

Regulatory clarity has been a key driver. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act cleared the Senate banking committee in mid-May by a 15-9 vote. The full Senate calendar now lists the bill for a vote, with the White House targeting July 4 for final passage. If enacted, the law would permanently classify XRP as a commodity. Standard Chartered estimates that alone could unlock an additional $8 billion in ETF inflows.

The other ticking clock involves the Federal Reserve. President Trump signed an executive order on May 19, 2026, directing the central bank to decide within 90 days whether to grant Krypto firms access to its payment system. Ripple, along with Anchorage Digital and Wise, stands to benefit directly. Without a so-called master account, Ripple must route dollar settlements through partner banks, incurring fees and counterparty risk. With one, its newly launched stablecoin RLUSD could flow over the same infrastructure used by major commercial banks.

Kraken proved the path is real — it received Fed approval for a master account in March. However, the Fed has signaled a pause on new decisions for Krypto firms until December. The 90-day deadline from Trump’s order could force an earlier verdict, potentially breaking that logjam.

On the network side, the XRP Ledger is pushing ahead with long-overdue DeFi upgrades. On May 26, the XRP Ledger Foundation published a draft for “AMM Swappable Curves,” an extension of the existing XLS-30 automated market maker. The proposal adds concentrated liquidity, StableSwap mechanics, and a future smart-AMM module. Liquidity providers would choose the pricing model best suited to a pool’s assets — tight bands for stablecoins, wider ranges for volatile pairs. Roughly 60% of AMM volume across DeFi now runs on some form of concentrated liquidity, a function that has been absent from XRPL since its AMM launch in 2024.

The timing aligns with a growing tokenization boom on the ledger. More than $3 billion in tokenized real-world assets already sit on XRPL, including a recent Treasury pilot involving Ripple, JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform, Mastercard and Ondo Finance. That transaction — a redemption of tokenized U.S. Treasuries — settled in under five seconds.

Looking further ahead, the XRPL is slated to activate a lending protocol in mid-2026. Institutional participants would be able to issue unsecured fixed-term loans through single-asset vaults, pushing the network beyond simple payments into broader credit markets.

None of this has yet moved the spot price. XRP is technically broken, with next resistance sitting between $1.30 and $1.60. But the combination of record ETF inflows, whale accumulation, and two high-stakes Washington catalysts creates a setup where a positive policy decision could meet a severely oversold market — potentially flipping the narrative from capitulation to reversal.