News Roundup XRP is trading in the $1.10–$1.14 band this week, a level it has struggled to break out of since a brutal June that dragged the token as low as $1.01 during a broader crypto selloff. XRP ETF inflows have run positive for eight straight weeks, with cumulative net inflows reaching roughly $1.47 billion,  and exchange outflows have accelerated sharply as whales appear to be pulling supply off exchanges.  Coinbase-side commentary this week described the chart as holding up even as institutional demand shows signs of cooling.  The CLARITY Act remains the dominant regulatory storyline, and it’s still unresolved. After missing the White House’s informal July 4 target, Senate Republicans released updated bill text on July 22 containing the first ethics provisions restricting presidential crypto profits, and Democrats rejected it within hours.  On July 23, Senate Majority Leader John Thune publicly cast doubt on passing the bill before the August recess,  even after Treasury Secretary Bessent had called it a “1-yard line” situation earlier in the week. The core math hasn’t moved: Republicans hold 53 seats and need seven to nine Democratic votes to clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold.  Prediction markets reflect the whiplash — Polymarket odds swung from above 80% in February to a record low near 24% in mid-July, rebounded to roughly 45%, and have since settled around 35%.  August 7 is the hard deadline before recess; miss it, and the bill likely slides into a post-midterms lame-duck session. On the corporate side, Ripple has been aggressive. Its own newsroom confirms a busy stretch: full MiCA authorization in Europe (July 6), an SBI Group partnership to launch RLUSD in Japan (June 24), and an expanded Bitso partnership for enterprise stablecoin settlement in Latin America (June 11). This week Ripple launched Ripple Mint, an automated platform for institutions to create, redeem, bridge and track RLUSD, and expanded the token to additional networks including Base, Optimism, Ink and Unichain,  alongside a strategic investment in compliance network Notabene. But the same reporting cycle flagged a real wrinkle: monthly RLUSD transfer volume dropped roughly 26% to $10.89 billion even as active addresses surged 68%  — growth in reach, not necessarily in flow. Technically, the XRPL keeps shipping. Version 3.2.0 of the reference server hit GitHub in mid-June, and while a large share of the validator set has upgraded, the amendment tied to that release hasn’t yet cleared the activation threshold  — a reminder that code adoption and governance votes move on separate clocks. On tokenization, XRPL’s RWA footprint keeps growing: the ledger added $2.6 billion over six months, pushing total RWA value to roughly $4.38 billion, with tokenized energy driving most of the recent gains.  Independent trackers disagree meaningfully on the exact figure (DeFiLlama’s number is a fraction of RWA.xyz’s), a discrepancy worth flagging rather than glossing over. Internationally, Japan remains XRP’s strongest live use case: SBI Ripple Asia completed registration as a prepaid payment instrument issuer under Japan’s Payment Services Act in March, enabling regulated token issuance on XRPL for consumer products.  The UAE and Middle East are following a similar regulatory-alignment path. Competitively, Stellar is the closest rival, and the picture is mixed rather than one-sided: Stellar processed $5.5 billion in Q1 payment volume, up 72% year-over-year, and its tokenized RWA value grew from $796 million to over $2 billion  — real gains XRP boosters shouldn’t wave away. The bear case deserves equal airtime. The most-repeated skeptical argument across multiple outlets this month is structural, not sentiment-driven: XRP price benefits from XRP usage and holding at scale, but most Ripple institutional flow routes through fiat and RLUSD rather than XRP as a bridge currency, making the price disconnect structural rather than temporary.  One analysis bluntly noted the strongest bearish argument is that Ripple can succeed as a company while the XRP token still doesn’t appreciate.  Standard Chartered’s own trajectory illustrates the recalibration: its 2026 target was cut from $8 to $2.80 earlier this year. Forward-Look The near-term US story is entirely about whether seven Democratic votes materialize before August 7. If they don’t, CLARITY likely slides past the midterms — not fatal, but it removes the cleanest near-term catalyst and leaves the March 2026 SEC/CFTC interpretive guidance (administratively reversible by a future administration) as the only real protection in place. That’s a genuine tail risk worth weighing, not just a talking point. Internationally, Ripple’s trajectory looks steadier than its US regulatory path — Japan’s live consumer deployments, European MiCA authorization, and LatAm/Middle East expansion are advancing regardless of what the Senate does. The structural risk that deserves the most weight, though, is the one bears keep raising: Ripple’s institutional wins (RLUSD, Ripple Mint, bank partnerships) don’t automatically convert into XRP token demand, since most of that flow bypasses XRP entirely. Until ODL corridors scale meaningfully or RWA/tokenization fee flow becomes material relative to XRP’s market cap, price and corporate momentum may keep decoupling — this is analysis, not a prediction, and a CLARITY Act surprise or a shift toward XRP-denominated settlement could change that calculus quickly.