Ripple’s European Win and Washington Stalemate Leave XRP Trapped Near Dollar Floor
Published on 07/18/2026 at 18:24 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Ripple brushed past two regulatory milestones this week, yet the disparate outcomes on either side of the Atlantic have only underscored how divided the market’s near-term catalyst list has become. While the company secured a coveted MiCA license unlocking 29 European markets, the probability of a key US crypto oversight bill passing before the August recess has slumped to a record low — tempering whatever tailwind the EU approval might have generated.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) added Ripple Payments Europe to its MiCA register on July 16, 2026, along with 14 other firms, bringing the total authorized crypto-asset service providers in the bloc to 294. The registration, built on a license from Luxembourg’s CSSF, allows Ripple to offer regulated crypto and stablecoin services across 29 EU countries — and as many as 30 jurisdictions when including the broader European Economic Area — through a passporting mechanism. The move came just eight days after Ripple received a preliminary "green light letter" on June 23, 2026, narrowly beating the MiCA transitional deadline that left roughly 83% of crypto firms in the region still unlicensed at the cutoff.
The timing works in Ripple’s favor, but regulators have flagged operational risks. Bruna Szego, chair of the EU’s new Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), warned that the forced migration of users to MiCA-compliant platforms after the deadline could strain firms’ compliance systems. The pace of new registrations has already slowed, with only 14 additions in the latest batch compared to 37 earlier in July.
US legislative clock ticks down with odds shrinking
Across the Atlantic, the outlook for the CLARITY Act — a Senate bill designed to settle the jurisdictional tug-of-war between the SEC and CFTC over digital assets — has darkened sharply. On Polymarket, the probability of the law passing before year-end has fallen to 32%, the lowest since that market opened and a dramatic slide from the 75% reading in May. A separate contract tracking a 2026 presidential signature stands at 34%, with trading volumes of roughly $1.9 million since January.
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Ripple’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty made an unusually direct appeal on Thursday, arguing that a vote against the bill is a vote for the regulatory chaos that bad actors exploit. Lauren Belive, Ripple’s head of global policy, framed the legislation primarily as a consumer protection measure rather than an industry handout. The bill would route investment-contract assets to the SEC and digital commodities to the CFTC — a structure Ripple knows all too well after its four-year legal battle with the agency.
Republicans are pushing for a floor vote in the week of July 20, with August 7 acting as the hard deadline before the Senate’s summer break. Securing the necessary 60 votes requires at least seven defections from the Democratic caucus, yet only two Democrats backed the bill in committee. The remaining five are proving difficult to win over in an election year, partly because Democrats object to passing a bill that leaves President Trump’s estimated $1.4 billion crypto holdings untouched. Trump’s own disclosures show $635 million in meme-coin licensing revenue and roughly $515 million from the sale of World Liberty Financial tokens.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has made enforceable ethics rules for public officials a condition for her support. Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the bill’s architects, has promised a revised version that may temporarily set aside the ethics clause to salvage the vote. Trump himself has been lobbying senators directly, with another meeting scheduled this week.
On the prediction platform Kalshi, the probability of a Senate vote before the recess stands at 79%, but the chance of the bill becoming law this year is just 36% — a gap that reflects the steep institutional climb remaining.
Price inertia persists despite mixed signals
XRP itself has shown little reaction to either the European approval or the legislative drama. The token traded at $1.09 on July 18, up roughly 1% on the MiCA news, while daily volume shrank 24% to $865 million. Over the past 30 days it has shed 8.23%, and the distance to the 52-week high of $3.65 from July 2025 remains a punishing 70.19%.
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On the plus side, XRP has defended the $1.00 level throughout the summer, sitting about 7.5% above its 52-week low of $1.01 set in late June. Yet it also trades 24% below its 200-day moving average of $1.43, a sign that the medium-term trend remains bearish even as the token attempts to form a local bottom.
ETF products tied to XRP have pulled in a cumulative $1.48 billion over nine weeks, yet that flow has failed to break the tight range below $1.15. JPMorgan had modeled first-year inflows of $4 billion to $8.4 billion, implying that even the lower end of that range has barely been tapped. Analysts at AInvest caution that real demand for XRP depends on usage of the XRP Ledger, not on license registrations alone, while noting that the RLUSD stablecoin still requires separate EU authorization before it can circulate in the region.
With the CLARITY Act vote looming in the Senate and the summer recess fast approaching, the next two to three weeks will determine whether Ripple’s lobbying push can flip enough Democrats to pass the bill — or whether the token will drift through a quiet August, trapped between a European regulatory breakthrough and Washington gridlock.
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