Software developer Vincent Van Code says the proposed CLARITY Act could unlock a wave of XRP adoption that the 2023 Ripple court ruling never quite managed to trigger. His argument is specific: a district court win is not the same as federal law, and for big banks, that difference matters enormously.
The 2023 ruling in the SEC's case against Ripple did meaningful work. The court found that XRP sales on secondary markets do not constitute securities, and that clarity was enough to get things moving. ODL corridors expanded, bank pilot programs picked up, ETF filings appeared, and custody support broadened. Institutions started testing the water.
But Van Code points out that none of that momentum rests on solid statutory ground. The SEC could shift its position in a future enforcement action. A different court could revisit or narrow the ruling. An administration change could bring new priorities. For a mid-sized bank weighing whether to build XRP into a core product, that stack of hypothetical risks is enough to stall the project entirely. The result is that many institutions have stayed in the shallow end: non-custodial services, small pilots, experimental use cases with limited capital exposure.
What federal law would actually change
The CLARITY Act is designed to move digital asset classifications out of courtrooms and into federal statute. Van Code argues that banks and traditional financial institutions follow conservative compliance frameworks, and those frameworks typically require clear legislative guidance before significant capital commitments are made. A court ruling, however favorable, does not satisfy that requirement for most compliance officers.
If the bill passes, it could remove the residual regulatory uncertainty that risk-averse institutions keep citing as a reason to hold back. Van Code is careful to say this is his personal analysis and that he is not predicting any direct effect on XRP's market price. The argument is about infrastructure adoption, not short-term price movement.
The Senate is currently circulating a new draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act as lawmakers push to finalize crypto market structure legislation before the August recess. The latest version includes a notable ethics provision that would prohibit the president and other senior government officials from holding direct crypto investments until 2029, with enforcement assigned to the Department of Justice. That addition has drawn attention and some friction, but the broader bill continues to advance.
The legislative timeline matters. The longer statutory clarity is delayed, the longer large institutions have a procedural excuse to stay on the sidelines. Van Code's point is essentially that XRP has already cleared the hardest legal hurdle, and the next barrier is not legal risk but legislative ambiguity.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.
