XRP's Deleveraging Pattern and Senate Showdown Converge at $1.08
Published on 07/17/2026 at 12:54 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The token is clinging to $1.08 after plunging 70% from last July's cycle high of $3.65, and the forces that will decide its next move are split between a fading futures market in Asia and a regulatory logjam in Washington. A key metric on Binance has collapsed to one of its lowest readings in over a year, while on the other side of the Atlantic the CLARITY Act heads toward a Senate vote that could reshape the entire US digital-asset landscape.
Leverage Ratio Hits Multi-Year Floor
The Binance Estimated Leverage Ratio, which tracks how much futures exposure traders hold relative to the exchange's reserves, now sits at 0.16 — just a hair above the April 2026 trough of 0.15 and the lowest since November 2024, according to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost. The pattern echoes a setup from 2024, when the ELR sank to 0.05 while XRP traded near $0.40. That was followed by a 790% rally to above $3.60. Darkfost cautioned that the current constellation does not guarantee a repeat, but he reads it as a market-cleansing signal: speculative excess is being flushed out of the system.
The price itself touched a 52-week low of $1.01 at the end of June, the closest it has come to the psychologically critical $1 mark in roughly 19 months. It has since staged a modest bounce, though at $1.08 it remains 24.43% below its 200-day moving average of $1.44, underscoring the persistence of the medium-term downtrend.
Political Clock Ticks on CLARITY Act
While traders watch the leverage gauge, the Senate calendar is the other wild card. President Trump is scheduled to meet senators on July 17 to push the CLARITY Act, which would split oversight of digital assets between the SEC and the CFTC. Trump approved the final text on July 16, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill in May 2026 by a 15-to-9 vote. The House passed an earlier version in July 2025 with a 294-to-134 margin.
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The arithmetic in the Senate is tight. Republicans hold 52 seats and need seven Democratic votes to clear the 60-vote threshold. Senator Elizabeth Warren has demanded that Trump produce an updated disclosure of his crypto-related income by July 23, pointing to his 2025 declaration of roughly $1.4 billion — more than double the prior year's figure. She argues the bill could worsen existing conflicts of interest. Prediction markets reflect the uncertainty: Polymarket gives the legislation a 41% chance of passing in 2026, while Kalshi pegs it at 36%; the probability of actually getting a Senate floor vote this year stands at 79%. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a longtime crypto advocate, believes a vote could come as early as next week.
Ripple's chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, has been sharply critical of senators who oppose the measure, warning that without the CLARITY Act, crypto holders remain exposed to fraudsters. The company itself spent roughly $150 million in legal costs defending against the SEC lawsuit filed in December 2020, and CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently revealed that Ripple came close to shutting down at the time.
Whales Accumulate While ETF Demand Falters
Beneath the price surface, a striking divergence is unfolding. The amount of XRP held on exchanges has fallen from 3.76 billion tokens to roughly 1.6 billion over nine months — a seven-year low — as investors move coins into self-custody or into spot ETFs. Those ETFs have absorbed about 970 million XRP, and whales have bought another 1.53 billion tokens in six months, now controlling 74% of the circulating supply.
Yet the price has not responded. The explanation appears to be weak demand on the margin: XRP ETFs saw outflows of $7.18 million in a single week, reversing the previous week's meager inflows of $107,000. In other words, accumulation by large holders is being offset by selling pressure elsewhere, leaving the token stuck near its lows.
Technical Signals Remain Incomplete
The monthly chart flashed a TD Sequential buy signal at $1.109 on July 16, and July has historically been a strong month for XRP. But technicians caution that a confirmed bottom requires three components: rising trading volume, a breakout above the critical Fibonacci level at roughly $1.02 (the 0.5 retracement), and a completed five-wave structure within about four weeks of the cycle low. None of those conditions has been met yet.
Exchange outflows are adding a constructive note to the narrative. At Binance, reserves have dropped to 2.61 billion XRP, the lowest since February 2026, and withdrawals are exceeding deposits across Coinbase, Binance, and Bybit — a pattern that often signals accumulation by longer-term holders. If the token breaks below $1.00, the next support zone lies at the 0.618 Fibonacci level near $0.87, which analysts regard as a stronger floor. A clear breach of parity would open the door to $0.80.
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Institutional Building Continues
None of this has stopped institutional players from deepening their ties to Ripple's infrastructure. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which manages assets worth $114 trillion, has launched its first stock-tokenization transactions on XRP-compatible rails, with Citadel Securities executing the initial trades. Citadel had already invested $500 million in Ripple in October 2025. Meanwhile, Ripple's own stablecoin, RLUSD, has seen its market cap surpass $1.5 billion.
On the regulatory front, Ripple is participating in the UK Treasury's Wholesale Digital Markets initiative, which could generate an estimated £33 billion in annual GDP impact by 2035. The XRP Ledger has crossed 8 million activated accounts, and tokenized real-world assets on the blockchain have reached a value of over $4 billion.
For now, the token remains caught between a rebuilt technical foundation and a political deadline. The deleveraging cycle has cleared out speculative froth, but without a Senate breakthrough or a confirmed price breakout, XRP is likely to stay in its current range — waiting for one of the two forces to tip the balance.
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