XRP's $1.44 Billion Inflow Surge Can't Lift Price as Ripple Battles Regulators and Banks

XRP near yearly low at $1.14 despite record $1.44B ETF inflows; Ripple CEO accuses JPMorgan's Dimon; CLARITY Act may force Ripple to cut holdings; AI and stablecoin expansions proceed.

XRP is trading at $1.14, barely above the year's low of $1.05 touched just a week ago, and has shed roughly 39% since January. Yet beneath the surface of this price malaise, institutional investors are piling in at a record pace — a disconnect that has few parallels in the crypto market.

For five consecutive weeks, XRP exchange-traded funds have racked up more net inflows than their Bitcoin and Ethereum counterparts. In the week through June 12 alone, XRP products attracted $10.68 million, while Bitcoin ETFs hemorrhaged $319 million in outflows over the same period. Cumulative net inflows into XRP ETFs now stand at $1.44 billion, signalling that professional money is betting on the token despite its stubborn slide.

The buying spree comes as Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse takes direct aim at one of Wall Street's most powerful figures. In a Fox Business appearance on June 12, Garlinghouse accused JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon of deliberately misrepresenting the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (H.R. 3633), alleging that Dimon is trying to protect his firm's payments business — which generates roughly $20 billion in annual revenue and over $5 billion in profit. The CLARITY Act would draw a clear jurisdictional line between the SEC and CFTC over digital assets, potentially classifying XRP as a "digital commodity" and ending years of regulatory uncertainty.

The bill passed the Senate Banking Committee in May by a 15-9 vote, with a full floor vote still outstanding. The White House is targeting passage by July 4, and prediction markets give a 47% to 59% chance of it being signed into law this year. Yet a hidden clause poses a headache for Ripple itself: the draft prohibits any entity from controlling more than 20% of a token's total supply. Ripple's own XRP holdings, including its escrow reserves, far exceed that threshold. If the law takes effect, the company would have just 12 months to pare down its stake.

While the regulatory drama plays out in Washington, Ripple is pressing ahead with infrastructure moves that could broaden XRP's utility. On June 10, the company launched the XRPL AI Starter Kit, a toolkit that lets autonomous AI agents execute payments in XRP and the RLUSD stablecoin via the x402 protocol — covering use cases such as API access and cloud resource payments. Mastercard has signed on as a launch partner for the "Agent Pay for Machines" feature, with transaction times clocked at three to five seconds. Integrations with AI platforms like Claude and Cursor are already in the pipeline.

Across the border, Ripple and Mexican crypto exchange Bitso expanded their partnership to bring the peso-pegged stablecoin MXNB onto the XRP Ledger, targeting faster settlement in the US-Mexico payment corridor. That complements Ripple's own dollar stablecoin RLUSD. Bitcoin Custody also helped energy firm VivoPower purchase $100 million worth of XRP via BitGo OTC on Saturday, funded by a Saudi private placement worth $121 million.

On the technical side, the XRP Ledger is scheduled for an upgrade to version 3.2.0 on Sunday, which is expected to slash server memory requirements by 30% to 40%. Separately, Ripple has applied for a Master Account with the Federal Reserve, a move that would grant direct access to federal payment systems. The SEC has also greenlit the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF for listing on NYSE Arca, a product that is permitted to hold XRP.

With the relative strength index stuck at 35.8 — firmly in oversold territory — the question is whether this torrent of positive developments can finally shake XRP loose from its year-low perch. The answer may hinge on the Senate vote this summer, and on how Ripple navigates the very regulatory clarity it has been fighting for.