XRP and XLM jump 8% ahead of Senate CLARITY Act vote

On September 14, XRP and XLM each jumped over 8% as market participants positioned themselves ahead of a crucial Senate procedural vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act).

XRP reached $1.47, an 8.42% increase, while XLM rose 8.44% to $0.1949.

Factors Behind the XRP and XLM Surge

The CLARITY Act is designed to establish more explicit jurisdictional boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), formally categorizing certain digital assets as commodities rather than securities.

Tomorrow, my colleagues have a choice to make: American leadership, real consumer protections, and giving law enforcement the tools they need to address illicit finance, or drive the digital asset industry overseas, leaving consumers vulnerable, and sidelining American leadership…

— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) September 14, 2026

If the bill is eventually enacted, both tokens stand to benefit significantly. In March 2026, the SEC and CFTC had already, in joint guidance, identified XRP and XLM, along with HBAR, as examples of digital commodities.

Turning that classification into law would reduce the lingering legal uncertainty that has particularly constrained institutional participation in payment and settlement networks.

XRP has historically been linked to cross-border payments and institutional settlement systems. Through the Stellar network, XLM has drawn attention for low-cost transfers and recent connections to traditional financial infrastructure, including a U.S. Bank cross-border stablecoin pilot completed on the network just days before the vote.

Late on September 13, Senate Republicans released what they described as the final draft, incorporating 126 substantive changes requested by Democrats.

The sponsors—Cynthia Lummis, John Boozman, and Tim Scott—stated that the 635-page text strengthens ethics provisions, expands enforcement roles for state attorneys general, and grants the Treasury new authority to address potential deposit flight from community banks related to payment stablecoin usage.

What the Senate Vote Might Determine

The cloture vote on the motion to proceed is scheduled for Tuesday, September 15, at 2:15 p.m. ET. To advance, the measure needs 60 votes. With Republicans holding 53 seats, at least seven Democratic or independent senators would need to cross over for the GOP to remain unified.

This bill isn't just a compromise…it's the product of real, substantive trades policymakers made to get here.
I said this many months ago: perfect can't be the enemy of good…
and let's be clear: those trades weren't small. This isn't a deal Senators should be ‘settling for’ —… https://t.co/mdLvqKVXjG

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) September 14, 2026

Three unresolved disagreements still complicate the math: ethics rules targeting President Trump’s reported $1.4 billion in crypto income, developer liability provisions under Section 604 affecting decentralized finance, and a stablecoin yield question threatening roughly $1.35 billion in annual Coinbase USDC rewards revenue.

Prediction markets suggest the odds of passage remain genuinely low. Polymarket pricing has fallen from 82% in February to 30% at the time of writing, while Galaxy Research pegs the probability at just 10%.

CLARITY is coming: probability of the CLARITY Act passing this year surge to ~29%.

The Senate released updated text ahead of Tuesday's cloture vote, incorporating bipartisan changes across stablecoin yield, exchanges, and civil protections. pic.twitter.com/Omk4vdeO1S

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) September 14, 2026

That doubt has not prevented the crypto market from viewing each legislative step as a positive catalyst regardless. Earlier advances, including the Senate Banking Committee’s 15-9 vote in May and intermittent signals of White House engagement on ethics language, produced similar short-term rallies in both tokens.

If cloture is not invoked on Tuesday, the bill would not be dead outright, but it would likely push comprehensive market-structure legislation past the midterms into 2027. For now, both tokens have responded positively to the latest developments, even as the underlying probability of passage remains stacked against them.