XRP’s $1.41 Tightrope: A Senate Deadline, a Nasdaq Ambition, and a $656 Million Treasury Bet

XRP hovers near $1.41 amid regulatory hopes from the CLARITY Act, a planned Nasdaq listing via Evernorth, and growing institutional adoption with DTCC and ETF inflows.

Ripple’s token is caught between two powerful forces. On one side, a potential regulatory breakthrough that could unleash billions in ETF inflows. On the other, a stubborn wall of sellers at $1.45 that has kept XRP pinned near $1.41 — barely above its 50-day moving average and roughly 25% lower since the start of the year.

The immediate catalyst is the CLARITY Act. Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick estimates that a markup in the Senate Banking Committee — now scheduled for the week of May 11 — could trigger between $4 billion and $8 billion in additional ETF inflows. The six US-listed spot XRP ETFs have already accumulated $1.29 billion in net inflows, with Goldman Sachs holding an estimated $154 million in XRP ETF positions. April alone saw over $81 million flow into these products, though the week ending May 1 marked the first net outflows in three months — a minor blip, but a notable one.

A Nasdaq Debut Without an IPO

While Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has made clear that a public listing is not on the table — “We have not prioritized going public for a whole bunch of reasons,” he said at XRP Las Vegas 2026, pointing to the poor post-IPO performance of crypto firms like BitGo, Gemini, and Kraken — a different kind of public market story is taking shape.

Evernorth Holdings, an XRP treasury company holding over 473 million XRP valued at roughly $656 million, is pushing toward a Nasdaq listing via a merger with Armada Acquisition Corp. II. The SEC accepted its amended Form S-4 on April 28. The company has nominated Robert Kaiden, CFO of the OpenAI Foundation, as a board candidate, joining a lineup that includes Antalpha COO Derar Islim, Ted Janus, and Ripple’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty. The deal, backed by investors including Ripple, SBI Holdings, Pantera Capital, and Kraken, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026. Ripple Labs directly contributed nearly 127 million XRP to the treasury.

Evernorth CEO Asheesh Birla, a longtime Ripple executive, plans to generate yield through lending protocols and DeFi strategies — a model that goes beyond passive holding. The goal is to create the first publicly traded XRP pure-play on the Nasdaq.

Institutional Infrastructure, Real-Time Impact

Ripple’s institutional push extends well beyond the IPO debate. The company has joined a Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) working group alongside BlackRock and Bank of America to develop standards for tokenizing real-world assets. The aim is to bridge blockchain infrastructure with traditional settlement systems — a move that positions Ripple as a building block for the next generation of clearing and settlement.

The legal clarity from the SEC case in August 2025, which classified XRP as a non-security, has been the key enabler. That ruling opened the door for large-scale institutional projects.

On May 4, Ripple announced it would share high-quality threat intelligence with the Crypto Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Crypto ISAC), targeting activities linked to North Korea — including fraudulent domains, wallets, and indicators of compromise. The data is distributed in real time via an API, giving regulated institutions a tangible compliance argument for using the XRP Ledger.

The TrustLinq Trigger

Switzerland-based TrustLinq integrated Ripple Payments into its live infrastructure, allowing users to transfer funds from self-custodial wallets directly into bank accounts in over 170 countries, with support for 80 currencies and instant crypto-to-fiat conversion via the XRP Ledger. The announcement sent trading volume soaring by roughly 135% to $2.7 billion in a single day — a clear signal that the market responds sharply to concrete use cases.

The $1.44 Wall

Yet for all the institutional momentum, the price remains stuck. Glassnode data shows that roughly 36.8 billion XRP — about 60% of the circulating supply — is held at an average cost basis of $1.44 to $1.45. Every approach to that level generates mechanical selling pressure. XRP currently trades at $1.41, just above its 50-day moving average but far from its yearly high.

Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz acknowledged that internal discussions about a potential listing continue, and that the political shift after Trump’s election win has reignited the debate. But Garlinghouse remains firm: the focus is on compliance and institutional adoption. Ripple received a conditional OCC trust charter in December, and Garlinghouse has confirmed that all conditions are within the company’s control.

The CLARITY Act markup in mid-May will test whether the market can break through the $1.45 resistance — or whether capital will wait for clearer regulatory ground before piling in.