XRP Slides to $1.28 After Senate Rejects CLARITY Act Cloture 49-50

Senate Kills CLARITY Act Cloture 49-50

XRP (XRP) trades at $1.28, down 11.4% over 24 hours, after the United States Senate rejected the motion to end debate on the CLARITY Act by 49 votes to 50 — the token's largest one-day percentage loss since February 5. Two days earlier the tape told the opposite story: a 9.8% pre-vote run-up carried the price to a $1.49 high on September 14, and options turnover spiked 350%, briefly outpacing both Bitcoin and Ethereum in speculative flow. Measured against that reference, the $1.28 print is a round trip of roughly 14% in 48 hours. That climb and the options surge were the market pricing in a Senate win; the 49-50 count repriced it in a single session.

The vote's arithmetic decides the near-term regulatory path: with cloture failing, rulemaking authority stays with the SEC and CFTC, and no market-structure bill reaches the floor before 2027. Peers fell far less on the same backdrop. Bitcoin dropped 2.2%, briefly breaching $75,000 for the first time since August 20 before steadying near $75,500; Ethereum lost 3.6% to trade under $2,400; Solana slipped 4%. XRP's drawdown ran roughly five times Bitcoin's and three times Ethereum's — dispersion we read as forced unwinding of the market's most crowded pre-vote long rather than plain beta to the broader altcoin complex. The slide cut XRP's market capitalization to about $80 billion, roughly 3.34% of total crypto market value, and leaves the token 65% below its all-time high of $3.65 from July 18, 2025. The rally we tracked as XRP jumped toward $1.47 ahead of the vote has fully unwound; readers weighing exposure can start with our explainer on Ripple's XRP settlement asset and follow our XRP price coverage.

Ripple's Legal Team Stands Firm

Ripple's legal leadership answered the vote with defiance while the price collapsed. Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty wrote in a public post that Ripple and XRP stand on solid footing, an argument resting on two pillars. The first is the 2023 federal court ruling that programmatic XRP sales on exchanges do not constitute securities transactions. The second is newer and, in his framing, more consequential: a joint interpretive statement issued on March 17 by the SEC and CFTC classifying 18 crypto assets — XRP alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana — as digital commodities rather than securities. That interpretation, published in the official SEC-CFTC filing, is a formal agency action binding on both regulators, not advisory staff commentary.

@s_alderoty · X post

Stuart Alderoty wrote in a public post.

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Ripple's corporate account called the failed vote “a huge missed opportunity,” reiterating that the case for clear rules — and the company's seat at the rulemaking table — persists. Our earlier coverage carried CEO Brad Garlinghouse's sharper version, blaming Democrats after the Senate test. Ripple's legal position may be settled; the market's is not, and the session's tape shows the gap. The verdict sits in the percentages: when one asset carries the largest leveraged long book into a binary event, an adverse outcome forces the deepest deleveraging, and XRP's 11.4% loss against Bitcoin's 2.2% is that asymmetry as arithmetic rather than sentiment. An agency path also carries a lower ceiling than a statute — rules can be challenged, delayed or reversed, which is why the March 17 interpretation protects XRP's status but cannot replace the bill that failed. For holders, the practical reading is narrower: classification secures the asset's regulatory footing without touching its price — the two moved in opposite directions this week. Former CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo said after the vote that both agency chairs remain determined to build a framework under US law rather than watch activity move offshore. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Gate.

The $1.2579 Floor Decides the Next Leg

Reaction to the failed cloture vote broadened beyond Ripple on September 16. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on X that the CLARITY Act's failure was a disappointment, but argued the industry "can't wait on Congress anymore," saying the SEC and CFTC have the tools to create clear rules and that bipartisan conversations could keep the bill alive. Garlinghouse, in a separate post, conceded the loss was painful, blamed Democrats for letting politics override good policy, called for a post-mortem on the vote, and said Ripple's business momentum, customer base and global footprint remain unchanged, with Chairman Atkins' SEC and Chairman Selig's CFTC now expected to fill the legislative gap. Separately, a Google Gemini AI scenario circulating among traders framed the stakes in prices: $4.50 if the Act or similar legislation passes by year-end, $0.65 if it stalls — a bear case contingent on a daily close below $1.26.

Fresh follow-through data adds a derivatives leg to the unwind. After the failed break above the $1.50 supply zone, XRP slipped below the $1.30 support that had anchored the prior range, and open interest fell 23% — from $1.128 billion in late August to $871 million, a $257 million contraction in leveraged positions. The decline alone cannot confirm whether longs or shorts were cut, but it signals position unwinding rather than fresh demand. Meanwhile, spot XRP ETF flows stayed positive throughout September, a supply-absorbing force that proved insufficient against broader pressure from Bitcoin's slide and rising rate expectations. Analysis circulating in the market holds the daily swing structure as still bullish, but warns that absent renewed spot and futures demand, a retracement toward $1.14 is possible — contingent on price reclaiming $1.30 and open interest stabilizing.

(as of 11:28 UTC) COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine — our first-party support and resistance map — rates the $1.2835 support at 95/100, STRONG, built from the EMA 50, HVN, Bollinger lower band and a flip from resistance, with spot at $1.2968 holding just above it; the $1.3436 resistance scores 96/100 from Ichimoku Senkou A, Senkou B, the cloud top and 0.500 Fibonacci confluence. Derivatives stay crowded: perpetual futures funding at 0.0018%, open interest of $825.6 million and a 2.99 long/short account ratio (74.9% long), with the Fear & Greed Index neutral at 50. Bullish path: hold $1.2835 and clear $1.3436 toward $1.3925, scored 69/100; bearish invalidation is a daily close below $1.2835 opening the $1.2159 level, scored 72/100. The RSI at 46.27 and a bearish MACD signal keep the trend sideways, with resistance stacking at $1.4619 (57/100) beyond the initial hurdle.