XRP holders cheer as Bessent says major crypto bill 'on the 1-yard line'

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters Tuesday that the CLARITY Act, the market-structure bill that would formally classify XRP and Bitcoin as digital commodities, is on the "1-yard line" in the Senate, and he urged lawmakers to finish the job before the chamber breaks for its August recess. The Bessent quote and broad market reaction were carried by Bloomberg and Stocktwits on July 21, 2026. For XRP holders, this is the closest Washington has come to permanently settling the question that has hung over the token since the SEC first sued Ripple in 2020.

The reaction was immediate. XRP traded to an intraday high of $1.1511 and settled near $1.1485, a 3.5% gain, with roughly $2.93 million in leveraged short positions liquidated, making it the third-best performer among the top 50 cryptocurrencies on the day. Our own data pegs XRP at $1.14 as of July 22.

What Actually Changed

The breakthrough was political, not technical. President Trump agreed to the CLARITY Act's ethics provision, which bars the president, vice president, lawmakers, and senior officials from personally profiting from crypto while in office. That clause had stalled the bill for months. Trump's own crypto ventures, including meme coin royalties and World Liberty Financial token sales, reportedly netted him more than $1.2 billion in 2025 alone (per Yahoo Finance/Decrypt reporting), which is why Democrats had refused to move without guardrails.

The backstory matters. Senator Chris Van Hollen's earlier amendment to bar officials and their families from owning or promoting crypto was blocked by Republicans in May. The bill cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15 to 9, with only two Democrats, Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks, voting yes. The unlock came after Trump met with Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno.

The Vote Math Is Still Tight

Republicans hold 53 Senate seats; passage requires 60 votes, so at least seven Democrats must cross over. Key holdouts include Catherine Cortez Masto and Mark Warner, who reportedly want illicit-finance safeguards addressed first. Prediction traders are not yet convinced: Polymarket's implied probability of the CLARITY Act being signed into law in 2026 sits around 41%, having climbed into the low-40s from the low-30s.

The rally extended beyond XRP. Bitcoin traded around $66,800, and Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) closed at $175.85 on July 21, up 9.61% on the session and 8.89% for the week. That still leaves the stock down 22.24% year to date, a reminder that 2026 has been brutal for the crypto complex. Market cap now sits at roughly $42.27 billion.

The Case for Caution

Not everyone is celebrating. Senators Van Hollen and Elizabeth Warren argue the current draft "risks deregulating existing markets and opening the door to further corruption and abuse" rather than strengthening consumer protections. And the clock is real: Senate Majority Leader John Thune must still fit a floor vote into a narrow window before the August 7 recess. Even a signed bill would be, in Bessent's framing, a catalyst rather than a finish line. The GENIUS Act, the 2025 stablecoin law, is the cautionary tale: regulators later missed a follow-up rulemaking deadline.

For XRP, the single biggest overhang on institutional adoption, the risk that its commodity status could be reversed by a future administration, just moved meaningfully closer to permanent resolution. Whether it clears the Senate before August, and whether the final text satisfies its Democratic critics, is the drama still to come.

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