XRP's Washington Debut Collides With Its Longest-Ever Run Above $1

XRP hovers near $1 after 635-day streak, down 46% YTD, as SEC delays and Congress recess weigh on sentiment.

Brad Garlinghouse will spend this week shuttling between two very different arenas. On Tuesday, the Ripple CEO takes the stage at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium alongside SEC Chair Paul Atkins and Senators Cynthia Lummis and Tim Scott, moderating a 15-minute session on modernizing financial infrastructure. Wednesday brings a reported visit to the White House. Yet even as the company consolidates its seat at the policy table, the token at the center of its ecosystem is hovering barely a cent above its worst price in a year.

XRP last changed hands near $0.9952, having touched a 52-week low of $0.9887 on August 15. The cryptocurrency has shed 46 percent since the start of the year and sits roughly 69 percent below its September 2025 peak of $3.18 — though the secondary article cites a cycle high of $3.66 from the prior year, reflecting differing reference points for the same drawdown.

A 635-Day Streak Under Siege

The most striking statistic is the one traders are watching closest: XRP has closed above the $1 mark for 635 consecutive trading sessions, a streak dating back to November 2024. Twice in the past week, sellers have pushed the price below parity in intraday trading, and twice buyers have managed to shove it back over the line.

The immediate trigger for the latest weakness was a security incident disclosed on August 11 and 14. Attackers drained roughly $200,000 from a bridge connecting the TX Chain to the XRP Ledger — a rounding error against a market capitalization of roughly $63 billion, yet enough to spook the market and briefly crack the psychological barrier.

Adding to the pressure, the SEC scrapped an open meeting scheduled for August 14 that was meant to address a framework for digital investment contracts and tokenized securities. The agency pulled the plug on the same day it was due to take place. Meanwhile, Congress has recessed for August without advancing the CLARITY Act, the central piece of crypto legislation now awaiting a procedural vote in the Senate on September 15. Analysts put the odds of timely passage at just 10 percent.

The Technical Picture Worsens

Momentum indicators paint a deteriorating picture. The relative strength index sits at 35.2, edging toward oversold territory, while the price has fallen 7.5 percent below its 50-day moving average and 22 percent below the 200-day average at $1.28 — a configuration that signals a firmly entrenched downtrend across multiple time horizons.

The danger beneath the surface is leverage. Market data shows roughly 380 million XRP accumulated by larger holders near the $1 level, while leveraged long positions worth $1.5 billion sit exposed on major exchanges. Should the 635-day streak finally break, the resulting liquidation cascade could accelerate the decline toward the next chart supports at $0.95 and $0.90.

Network Upgrades and Institutional Money Push Back

Beneath the price action, the underlying technology continues to evolve. The XRP Ledger recently upgraded to version 3.3.0, introducing confidential transactions, batch transfers, and a new permissions system designed to appeal to institutional users and real-world asset tokenization. On August 6, developers also stripped out five obsolete protocol extensions, including the original "Clawback" code, in a bid to make the codebase leaner and easier to maintain.

The upgrade includes the Confidential MPT amendment, which enables encrypted account balances and transfer amounts while preserving sender-receiver traceability for audit purposes. Validator activation is still pending. Ripple has also been expanding its institutional footprint through investments in ZILO, a transfer agency technology provider, and Licuido, a platform for tokenized ownership — both aimed at allowing institutions to use tokenized funds as collateral with atomic settlement directly on the ledger.

The stablecoin side of the business is growing too. Ripple minted an additional 10 million units of its dollar-pegged RLUSD on Monday, bringing the circulating supply to roughly $1.71 billion. The transaction cost a mere 0.000405 XRP in fees, underscoring how cheaply large value transfers move across the network.

A Mixed Institutional Scorecard

The seven approved spot XRP ETFs in the US now collectively manage $994 million. Weekly inflows have cooled from a July peak of $14.86 million to $2.25 million most recently — still positive, but a marked slowdown in momentum.

The coming days will test whether Ripple's political ascent can translate into tangible regulatory progress. The White House meeting on August 19 and the Senate vote on September 15 represent the next concrete milestones. For now, the $1 line remains the battleground where the 635-day streak — and the leveraged positions stacked behind it — will ultimately be decided.