Connect with us
DAPA Banner

Crypto World

XRP price hinges on Senate CLARITY Act in April

Published

on

130k jobs in January, but there were massive revisions

The XRP price CLARITY Act connection has never been tighter: with the Senate Banking Committee targeting a late April markup and Senator Bernie Moreno warning that failure to pass by May effectively kills the bill for 2026, the next three weeks in Washington are the most consequential period XRP has faced this year.

Summary

  • The Senate returns from Easter recess on April 13 with a CLARITY Act Banking Committee markup targeted for the second half of the month; if the bill does not reach the Senate floor by May, Senator Moreno warns it will not move again before the 2026 midterms
  • If the CLARITY Act advances through committee, analysts project $4 to $8 billion in additional XRP ETF inflows, which could push XRP above $1.60 and toward its prior highs; if the bill stalls, XRP risks falling below $1.20 and potentially toward $0.82 if Bitcoin simultaneously breaks $60,000
  • XRP posted its worst quarter in eight years in Q1 2026, falling 27% despite a string of regulatory wins including SEC/CFTC commodity classification and $1.44 billion in ETF inflows since last year’s launches

The XRP (XRP) price CLARITY Act deadline is now a matter of weeks, not months. XRP is trading around $1.34 on April 6, up 2.2% on ceasefire-related risk-on sentiment, but still down more than 63% from its July 2025 peak of $3.65. According to 24/7 Wall St., Q1 2026 was XRP’s worst quarter in eight years, with its market cap shrinking by nearly $29 billion despite the SEC and CFTC jointly classifying XRP as a digital commodity on March 17.

The problem, analysts argue, is that regulatory clarity alone is not enough. Banks and large asset managers need the CLARITY Act to become federal law before they will commit capital at scale, because the current commodity classification is an interpretive release rather than legislation, and a future administration could reverse it.

Advertisement

The Senate returns from Easter recess on April 13. The Banking Committee markup is targeted for the second half of April. That is the window. As crypto.news reported, the long-running stablecoin yield dispute between banks and crypto firms appears to be entering its endgame, with Senators Tillis and Alsobrooks having reached a compromise in principle on March 20 that bans passive yield on stablecoin balances but permits activity-based rewards tied to payments and platform use.

Polymarket currently gives the CLARITY Act roughly a 63 to 66% probability of being signed into law in 2026. But Senator Moreno has stated publicly that if the bill does not reach the full Senate floor by May, midterm election dynamics will push it off the calendar for the rest of the year. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has already pushed his own expected passage timeline from end of April to end of May.

The Bullish Scenario: $1.60 and Beyond

If the Senate Banking Committee advances the bill in late April, analysts project the development would unlock $4 to $8 billion in additional XRP ETF inflows, according to Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick. Seven US spot XRP ETFs already pulled in $1.44 billion since launching between September and December 2025 without the CLARITY Act as law. With it, the institutional capital currently on the sidelines would have permanent legal cover. That scale of inflows would lock hundreds of millions of XRP tokens in custody, tightening circulating supply and, according to the 24/7 Wall St. analysis, providing the momentum needed to push XRP above $1.60 and potentially toward its prior cycle high.

Advertisement

The Bearish Scenario: Below $1.20

As crypto.news noted, the CLARITY Act enters the Senate Banking Committee with broad support but a narrowing clock and almost no room for further substantive revision. If the bill stalls past May, Standard Chartered’s 2026 XRP price target falls to $2.80 at best, the forecast already cut from $8 when delays first materialized. Without the bill, XRP would likely follow Bitcoin’s direction in a market where BTC is currently range-bound between $65,000 and $73,000 with the Fed holding rates through at least December. A stall combined with Bitcoin breaking below $60,000 could see XRP drop toward $0.82, according to the 24/7 Wall St. analysis.

“April is the narrowest window XRP has had for that to change,” 24/7 Wall St. wrote. “If the CLARITY Act advances through the Banking Committee before May, Q2 starts with something Q1 never had.”

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Crypto World

Every 5 Minutes: Korea’s New Rule for Crypto Exchanges

Published

on

South Korea’s financial regulator has ordered all crypto exchanges to verify user asset balances every five minutes, following a massive overpayment incident that shook market confidence earlier this year.

One botched reward payout exposed systemic cracks across the entire industry.

What Triggered the Rules

In February, Bithumb accidentally sent 2,000 BTC per person instead of 2,000 Korean won ($1.40) during a promotional event. The error amounted to roughly $42 billion in misallocated crypto. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) launched emergency inspections across all five major Korean exchanges immediately after. What they found went far beyond a single human mistake.

Most exchanges were only reconciling their books once every 24 hours. Three had no automatic kill switch to halt trading when discrepancies appeared. Four lacked multi-step approval systems for high-risk manual transactions. Two exchanges hadn’t even separated their general accounts from high-risk transaction accounts — a basic safeguard.

Advertisement

What Exchanges Must Now Do

The FSC announced a three-pillar reform package on April 6. Exchanges must run automated balance checks every five minutes, with alerts and automatic trading halts triggered by major mismatches. Monthly external audits replace the previous quarterly schedule, and public disclosures must now include asset-by-asset blockchain holdings rather than a simple coverage ratio.

For manual, high-risk transactions such as event payouts, exchanges must use separate accounts, deploy validity-check systems that automatically reject mismatched inputs, and require cross-verification by a third party before execution.

The FSC will also require exchanges to appoint dedicated risk management officers and establish risk management committees — standards already expected of traditional financial firms. Compliance checks move from annual to twice-yearly, with results reported to regulators.

DAXA, the industry body, will complete self-regulatory amendments this month, with systems built out by May. Key provisions will feed into Korea’s forthcoming second-phase Digital Asset Act.

Advertisement

The post Every 5 Minutes: Korea’s New Rule for Crypto Exchanges appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Source link

Continue Reading

Crypto World

Chaos Labs Leaves Aave Due to Budget, Risk Disagreements

Published

on

Chaos Labs Leaves Aave Due to Budget, Risk Disagreements

Chaos Labs has parted ways with the Aave ecosystem after serving as the crypto lending protocol’s main risk service provider for three years, citing a budget dispute and disagreements over how Aave should manage risk.

“This decision was not made in haste,” Chaos Labs founder Omer Goldberg said in a post to X on Monday. “We worked in good faith with DAO contributors. Aave Labs was professional and supported increasing our budget to $5m to retain us. However, we are leaving because the engagement no longer reflects how we believe risk should be managed.”

Source: Omer Goldberg

Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov said that Chaos didn’t depart on bad terms, but claimed that Chaos pitched a proposal seeking to become the sole risk provider and thus force out other partners — a compromise Aave wasn’t willing to accept.

Chaos played a key role in Aave’s back-end infrastructure, from pricing loans and managing risk in the Aave V2 and V3 markets since November 2022, during which Aave’s total value locked rose fivefold to $26 billion.

Risk has been a major talking point in the Aave community after a user lost $50 million in a trade while interacting with Aave’s interface on March 12. The following week, Aave said it would introduce an “Aave Shield” protection feature to deter users from high-risk trades.

Advertisement

As for Chaos’ departure, Goldberg said there became an increasing misalignment over how the parties thought risk should be managed. He noted that some Aave contributors had left, raising its workload, while also arguing that Aave V4’s expanded functionality introduced additional operational and legal risks that fell on Chaos’ shoulders.

“While Aave Labs is optimistic about a swift migration to V4, history suggests these transitions take months and even years,” Goldberg said. “Until V4 fully absorbs V3’s markets and liquidity, both systems need to be operated and managed simultaneously. The workload during the transition doesn’t halve. It doubles.”

Weighing the risk of a protocol failure, Goldberg said, “There is no regulatory framework, no safe harbor, and no settled law that answers the question of what a risk manager or curator owes when a protocol fails. If things work, the work is invisible. If things break, the blame is not.”

As such, “We are walking away from a $5 million engagement,” Goldberg said.

Advertisement

Chaos wanted Aave to boot LlamaRisk, Chainlink: Kulechov

Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov told a slightly different story, stating that Chaos wanted to be the sole risk manager and use its price oracles instead of Chainlink’s.

Following that request would have forced Aave to push out its other risk protocol partner, LlamaRisk, and thus abandon its two-layer economic risk model.

Related: DeFi lender Aave launches on OKX’s Ethereum L2, X Layer

Kulechov added Aave was unwilling to integrate Chaos-built price oracles, citing Aave’s “track record” with Chainlink’s services, which its “users are currently more comfortable with at scale.”

Advertisement

He also said Chaos was already “exploring winding down its risk consultancy services,” and that Aave had offered to double its payment to $5 million to retain them.

Cointelegraph reached out to Chaos Labs for comment.

Kulechov noted that Chaos’ departure hasn’t disrupted the Aave protocol, its smart contracts, token listings or network integrations.

Moving forward, Aave said it “will work closely with LlamaRisk to ensure a smooth transition” and maintain its two-layer economic risk model. 

Advertisement
Source: LlamaRisk

Chaos’ departure comes amid a protocol-wide feud over how much funding and revenue control Aave Labs should receive versus Aave’s decentralized autonomous organization.

Despite the internal issues, Aave crossed the $1 trillion mark in cumulative lending volume in late February, marking a first in the DeFi industry.

Magazine: Animoca teams up with Ava Labs, Shrapnel on Steam: Web3 Gamer