XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) climbed above $1.16 on July 21 after President Trump agreed to the ethics provision that had been blocking the CLARITY Act in the Senate. But nine days later, the bill still has no floor vote, and XRP has fallen to around $1.08, which is seven cents above the $1.009 low it set on June 26.
The Senate set the bill aside on July 27 to clear a Russia sanctions package and a backlog of nominations, and traders on Polymarket now price its chances of becoming law this year near 30%, down from 82% in February. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve held rates on July 29, with three officials voting to raise them instead, so the rate cuts investors were waiting for are off the table.
So, how low can XRP go if the CLARITY Act doesn’t pass this year?
Why XRP Keeps Falling in 2026
XRP has been falling for a full year now, down about 70% from its July 2025 peak of $3.65. However, through every big drop along the way, holders had a reason to believe help was coming.
The CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 on May 14, and XRP rose 4.5% that day. Investors were also still expecting the Fed to cut rates after three cuts in the closing months of 2025, and XRP ETFs took in more than $130 million in May as the price rallied.
A provision on ethics has held the bill up since, and it would bar senior government officials from issuing their own cryptocurrencies. Democrats rejected letting the Justice Department enforce it alone, and Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on July 23 that he did not expect the Senate to pass the bill before the August recess. Congress returns for only a few weeks in September before the November midterms, with a lame-duck session after the elections as the last chance of the year.
The Fed has now held rates for five straight meetings, and its 9-3 vote on July 29 was a split over whether to raise them, which leaves a September increase in play. Meanwhile, XRP ETF inflows have slowed to a trickle, with the funds recording only $13.61 million so far this month. So, the XRP price is falling with nothing due before September to catch it.
Has XRP Already Bottomed at $1.01?
On June 26, XRP fell to $1.009 on $2.2 billion of volume, which is its heaviest trading day of the month, and buyers absorbed the selling. XRP has held above $1 in the five weeks since, through the CLARITY delay and the Fed meeting, and its weakest daily close all year was $1.038 on June 30.
On-chain cost-basis data, which maps the price at which each coin last moved, shows there’s more than 830 million XRP between $1.00 and $1.06. That is the biggest concentration of coins anywhere close to the current price, and below $1.00 there is almost nothing until $0.80.
Moreover, wallets holding 100,000 to 100 million XRP added 2.8% more coins in the five weeks after June 26. That works out to roughly 600 million XRP—about $700 million at today’s price—and takes those wallets to some 22.35 billion XRP, which is more than a third of the circulating supply. The smallest wallets sold 5.2% of theirs over the same stretch, while whale deposits to Binance fell to 25.3 million XRP, marking the lowest since January 2025.
Meanwhile, XRP’s weekly RSI fell to 29.6 on June 26, dropping below 30 for only the second time in XRP’s history, and Santiment’s data puts the average holder about 45% below what they paid, which is the deepest loss on record.
However, the only previous reading that low took years to pay off. XRP’s weekly RSI hit 28.09 in June 2022 and marked the exact bottom at $0.29, but the run that reached $3.65 didn’t begin until November 2024. A separate buy signal flashed this April and failed outright, with XRP trading more than 25% lower by late June.Â
If XRP Loses $1, the Next Floor Is $0.80 to $0.95
Below $1, XRP would fall into prices where very few coins have ever changed hands. Cost-basis records show almost nobody bought XRP between $0.80 and $1.00, so a price falling through that stretch finds no holders with a reason to stop it. The next big group of owners doesn’t appear until $0.80, where 923 million XRP last changed hands.
That is why a break below $1 could carry XRP into the low $0.90s quickly, and why the next floor would come from the chart. Traders have marked $0.975 as the first level under the line, then $0.87, and $0.85 below that.
Meanwhile, Robinhood’s prediction market prices a 41% chance that XRP’s 2026 low lands below $0.80, down from 53% on June 11. Most traders on the market still expect the low to form between $0.80 and $1.
However, the same conditions that pulled XRP within a cent of $1 in June are still in place, with the CLARITY Act parked, ETF demand quiet, and Bitcoin stuck in the low $60,000s. If none of that changes by September, those conditions could drag XRP below $1, and the buyers who defended the level in June would have to step in again.
The Worst Case for XRP Is a Drop Toward $0.70
XRP has been this deep in a downtrend before, and the last time didn’t end well. In May 2022, the coin was down roughly 70% from its peak and holding its 200-week moving average—the long-term trend line where every previous XRP decline had stopped—at $0.57. When that level broke, the price fell 50% to $0.28 within a month. Today that average is near $1.40, and XRP already trades 23% below it.
Every XRP bear market has also ended deeper than this one has gone so far. XRP lost 96% between 2018 and 2020 and 85% between 2021 and 2022, against about 72% at June’s low. A decline matching even the milder of those two would put the price near $0.55.
However, one long-term measure has caught every XRP bottom since 2017. The lower band of XRP’s two-week Gaussian channel, which tracks how far the price has stretched below its long-term trend, marked the floor at half a cent in March 2017, 10 cents in March 2020 and 29 cents in June 2022. As of early June, that band ran from $0.70 to $0.90, which is where we think is the worst case.
XRP would likely only fall that far if the Fed raises rates in September and Bitcoin breaks its June low near $58,000 at the same time. Bitcoin tested that level in late June and XRP still held above $1, so if BTC drops below it, XRP could follow.
As for a repeat of the 96% wipeout, we don’t see it happening. XRP fell that far with no institutional buyers anywhere in the market, and the SEC lawsuit that followed held the price down for years. This decline is the first XRP has faced since the SEC and CFTC classified it as a digital commodity in March, a status the CLARITY Act would write into law. It is also the first with regulated ETFs in the market, and those funds have taken in $1.49 billion since November.
How Low Will XRP Drop in 2026?
If the conditions of the past month continue into September, XRP would likely close below $1 and print its 2026 low between $0.85 and $0.95. The buyers between $1.00 and $1.06 have held the line for five weeks, but the CLARITY Act looks shelved until September, ETF inflows are running at single-digit millions, and the Fed is debating a hike rather than a cut. XRP has not closed a day below $1 all year, so the first close under the level would signal the deeper drop is underway.
A Senate floor date for the CLARITY Act would change the answer, since every step the bill has taken this year has moved the XRP price within a day, and a floor vote is the biggest step left. If the bill passes in September or in the lame-duck weeks after the elections, June’s $1.009 could stand as the year’s bottom.
Even then, a low of $0.85 to $0.95 would leave XRP down 74% to 77% from its $3.65 peak, against the 85% fall that ended in 2022 and the 96% fall that ended in 2020, making this its mildest major bear market.
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