Lawyer reveals key reason XRP sank after CLARITY Act vote

By Finbold | Created at 2026-09-16 11:38:59 | Updated at 2026-09-19 10:27:02 2 days ago

As XRP’s market capitalization fell by approximately $7.1 billion over the past 24 hours, following a major setback on the CLARITY Act, a proposed federal regulation in the United States aimed at regulating the crypto industry, William Arthur Morgan, an Australian commercial litigation lawyer at Morgan Mac Lawyers, said it stood to gain more from legal clarity than other cryptocurrency assets.

Morgan stated that he believes the main reason XRP’s price slumped by over 8% in 24 hours on September 16, to $1.29 at press time, was that it stood to gain more than most crypto from the passage of the CLARITY Act.

“Not because XRP needs legal clarity but because the crypto market needs legal clarity and the institutions that are increasingly interested in XRP need the crypto market to have legal clarity,” Morgan stated.

As such, he concluded that XRP price stands to gain a ‘strong positive impact’ if and when the CLARITY Act passes. After this bill failed to gain bipartisan support on Tuesday, Stuart Alderoty, the Chief Legal Officer (CLO) at Ripple Labs, recounted XRP’s legal clarity through several agencies.

“Ripple and XRP stand on settled ground. The 2023 federal Court ruling established that XRP is not a security. And in March, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a joint interpretation naming XRP a digital commodity. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Mike Selig understand these markets,” Alderoty highlighted.

Nonetheless, Ripple Labs admitted that the latest slowdown in passing the CLARITY Act is ‘a tremendous missed opportunity for American consumers, the digital asset industry, and U.S. competitiveness’.

XRP price performance amid CLARITY Act stalls

Over the last seven days, XRP price has fallen by 9.36%, thereby lowering its market cap to $80.4 billion. During the past 24 hours, XRP price changed by a decline of 8.14%.

At the time of reporting, this token had a reported 24-hour trading volume of $6.64 billion, up 45.1%, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), and Ethereum (ETH) slipped 1.28%, 3.51%, and 2.98%, respectively.

Consequently, Morgan concluded that XRP’s price is highly correlated with legal clarity, as it recorded higher volatility today than other crypto assets.

Featured image via Shutterstock

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