Senate Panel Advances CLARITY Act; Paths Open for XRP, SOL, HYPE

The Senate Banking Committee approved the Crypto Market Structure Bill, known as the CLARITY Act, on Thursday and sent the measure to the full Senate. Committee members added more than 100 amendments during markup.

The bill includes a grandfather clause that fast-tracks commodity status for tokens tied to approved or pending exchange-traded funds. That designation would reduce certain secondary-market regulatory exposure for tokens that meet the criteria.

XRP, the native token of the Ripple network, aligns most directly with the grandfather provision. XRP has faced Securities and Exchange Commission scrutiny over secondary sales. Trading data showed XRP rose about 7% in the 24 hours after the committee vote, trading near $1.51.

Solana met the bill’s decentralization tests and would qualify as a mature blockchain under the legislation. The bill’s DeFi safe-harbor provisions would shield non-custodial developers, validators and liquidity providers from broker-registration requirements while preserving anti-fraud enforcement. Solana’s price moved up roughly 1.7% to about $92.70 in the same period.

Hyperliquid operates a layer-one network that runs a fully on-chain perpetuals exchange. That architecture corresponds to the bill’s DeFi safe-harbor language. Hyperliquid’s token traded about 12% higher in the 24 hours after the vote, near $43.86. The protocol has no known legacy SEC disputes, and custodial support for wrapped Hyperliquid products has expanded institutional access.

The bill must still be reconciled with a House measure and clear a 60-vote threshold on the Senate floor. Lawmakers and market participants flagged that final language on stablecoin yields, the scope of DeFi protections and other technical definitions could change before final passage, which could alter which tokens qualify for the bill’s protections.

The committee vote now sends the CLARITY Act to floor debate, where additional amendments and inter-chamber negotiations will determine the final regulatory framework for exchanges, custodians and decentralized protocols.