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XRP continues to drift in no man’s land, trading at $1.09 — a stone’s throw from the 52-week low of $1.01 plumbed in late June. The token has shed 10.7% over the past month, sits 42% in the red for 2026, and remains 70% below its all-time high of $3.65 from July last year. Yet against this backdrop of persistent weakness, a flurry of institutional activity, whale accumulation, and a make-or-break regulatory vote in Washington are pulling the asset in conflicting directions.
The CLARITY Act, which would overhaul US oversight of digital assets by splitting authority between the SEC and CFTC, faces its most critical test yet. President Trump signed off on the final text on 16 July, and a House subcommittee hearing titled “Building the Future of Finance: How the CLARITY Act Unlocks Innovation” convenes in New York on 17 July. The bill already cleared the House with a 294-134 vote in July 2025 and advanced from the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026 on a 15-9 tally. But the Senate floor remains the true bottleneck. Republicans control 52 seats and need seven Democratic votes to hit the 60-vote threshold. Senator Elizabeth Warren is demanding Trump disclose his crypto holdings by 23 July, arguing the legislation could entrench conflicts of interest — his 2025 financial disclosure showed roughly $1.4 billion in crypto-related income. Betting markets reflect the uncertainty: Polymarket puts the probability of passage this year at 41%, Kalshi at 36%, while the chance of a Senate vote at all is pegged at 79%. Senator Cynthia Lummis has signaled she may introduce a revised draft with a softened ethics clause, and Senator Thom Tillis expressed hope for a deal within days. Ripple’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty warned that rejecting the bill would leave the kind of regulatory gaps exploited during the FTX collapse. Should the Senate fail to act before the August 7 recess, a vote could slip to 2027.
On-chain data paints a picture of accumulating whales but evaporating retail enthusiasm. According to Santiment, large wallets scooped up roughly 70 million XRP in the past week alone, while Binance reserves dropped to 2.61 billion tokens — the lowest since February. AOL reports that total exchange-held XRP has tumbled from 3.76 billion to around 1.6 billion over nine months, a seven-year low driven by self-custody migration and ETF inflows. Whales have absorbed another 1.53 billion tokens in six months and now control 74% of the circulating supply. Yet the price refuses to budge higher. The reason appears to be demand exhaustion: weekly net inflows into XRP spot ETFs have collapsed from $131.9 million in May to $59 million in June and practically zero in July. CCN.com reported outflows of $7.18 million in the most recent week, following paltry inflows of just $107,000. New wallet creation also hit a wall — only 2,130 addresses were created on 11 July, the lowest single-day tally since November 2024.
The technical picture offers mixed signals. XRP is trading 4.7% below its 50-day moving average of $1.14 and a daunting 24.4% under the 200-day MA of $1.44, underscoring the medium-term downtrend. But chartists have spotted a potential inverse head-and-shoulders pattern with a neckline at $1.12; a breakout above that level would imply a target near $1.30. On 16 July, COINTURK flagged a TD Sequential buy signal at $1.109, suggesting selling pressure may be exhausting. The weekly relative strength index dipped to around 29.6 in June — only the second time it has fallen below 30, following a similar reading in June 2022 when XRP traded at $0.29 and subsequently rallied roughly 1,100% to its July 2025 peak. Whether history repeats remains speculative; the average holder is sitting on a 45% loss over 30 days and a 47% loss over the past year.
Away from the price action, Ripple’s institutional footprint continues to expand. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which oversees $114 trillion in assets, launched initial equity tokenization transactions on XRP-compatible infrastructure, with Citadel Securities executing the first trades. Citadel had already invested $500 million in Ripple in October 2025. Ripple’s own stablecoin, RLUSD, now boasts a market cap above $1.5 billion, and the company has joined the UK Treasury’s wholesale digital markets initiative — a project that could generate £33 billion in annual GDP by 2035. CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed that Ripple came within hours of shutting down after the SEC filed its lawsuit in December 2020, burning roughly $150 million in legal fees. Meanwhile, the XRP Ledger has surpassed 8 million activated accounts, and tokenized real-world assets on the network exceed $4 billion. Garlinghouse also stirred debate this week by declaring that many US dollar stablecoins are “useless” and only transparent, regulated variants will survive — a remark that dovetails with Ripple’s heavy push behind RLUSD.
For now, the tug-of-war between building infrastructure and sliding prices leaves traders watching one date above all others: the Senate’s summer recess on 7 August. If the CLARITY Act clears that hurdle, a wave of regulatory clarity could unlock institutional capital that has remained on the sidelines. If it stalls, the technical and on-chain foundations may take much longer to translate into a price recovery.
Silver prices tumbled on Wednesday, caught between a hawkish Federal Reserve posture and fresh military escalation in the Middle East, even as a structural supply deficit that has now reached 762 million ounces continues to underpin long-term bullish forecasts.
The white metal fell to $57.87 per ounce on July 15, a drop of 1.35 percent from the prior session, according to one widely cited quote. Other sources put the decline at 1.4 percent to $57.84, or as low as $57.55. Gold, by contrast, held nearly flat at $4,056, pushing the gold-silver ratio to 70-to-1 – a level that underscores just how badly the industrial metal has lagged its yellow counterpart this year.
The latest leg lower followed the United States launching another wave of airstrikes against Iran and reactivating its naval blockade of Iranian ports near the Strait of Hormuz. The move, which President Trump had signalled the previous day, sent oil prices surging and revived inflation anxieties among investors. For a zero-yielding asset like silver, the combination of rising energy costs and the prospect of tighter monetary policy is doubly punishing.
The inflation picture, however, remains contradictory. US consumer prices fell 0.4 percent month-on-month in June – the first such decline since 2020 – while the annual rate slowed to 3.5 percent from 4.2 percent in May, undershooting expectations of 3.8 percent. Producer prices also dropped 0.3 percent month-on-month, the steepest slide in 14 months. Cheaper oil had been a tailwind, but the Hormuz blockade threatens to reverse that trend.
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, testifying before Congress, reiterated the central bank’s commitment to price stability but stopped short of signalling a more restrictive stance. Markets nonetheless priced in roughly a 50 percent probability of a rate hike at the September meeting, driven primarily by the geopolitical shock to energy markets. Fed Governor Lisa Cook separately warned of inflation risks stemming from tariffs, the Middle East conflict, and heavy AI-driven investment. The Fed’s Beige Book described economic activity as growing at a slight to moderate pace in eleven of twelve districts, while noting rising input costs tied to the conflict and trade policy – conditions that keep rate-cut hopes at bay.
While short-term macro headwinds dominate price action, the structural picture tells a different story. The Silver Institute projects a sixth consecutive annual supply deficit in 2026, this year of 46.3 million ounces. Since 2021, cumulative shortfalls have reached a staggering 762 million ounces. Mine production is forecast to fall by a further 2.5 million ounces, even as industrial demand – now 58 percent of total consumption – continues to climb.
Solar manufacturers, the largest industrial consumers, have trimmed their silver usage by 19 percent to 151 million ounces this year by substituting copper. Yet the deficit has not narrowed; it continues to widen. Complicating matters further, roughly 70 percent of global silver supply emerges only as a by-product of base-metal mining, leaving producers little ability to ramp up output in response to higher prices.
Inventories on the COMEX have contracted by 75 percent from their 2020 peak, standing at just 79.9 million ounces – a telling sign of physical tightness in a market that has seen paper volumes dwarf available metal.
Despite the near-term rout – silver lost $16.57 per ounce, or 22.04 percent, in the second quarter, its worst quarterly performance since Q1 2020 – major banks remain resolutely bullish. JPMorgan forecasts an average price of $81 per ounce in its base case, with Bank of America eyeing $100 to $133 under a bull scenario. The LBMA consensus sits at $79.57. JPMorgan further sees prices above $80 by year-end and reaching $100 by 2030.
Paul Wong of Sprott notes that while the options market has normalised, physical inventory remains strained, and he expects supply deficits to persist for another seven to eight years, driven by demand from solar, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, and the military sector.
Technically, support is pegged in the $57 region within a bearish rectangle pattern, with a deeper floor near $55.50 to $56.00. Resistance lies between $59.42 and $59.57. For the weeks ahead, the Strait of Hormuz will remain the critical wildcard – every fresh escalation risks lifting oil prices further, hardening the Fed’s stance, and keeping silver pinned down, even as the market’s fundamental story only grows more compelling.
The silver market has quietly piled up a cumulative supply deficit of 762 million ounces since 2021, yet the metal remains trapped in a tight trading band as conflicting macro forces pull traders in opposite directions. The structural shortage—now in its sixth consecutive year—is deepening even as near-term headwinds from Federal Reserve policy and escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz cap any sustained rally.
Spot silver slipped to around $57.55–$58.00 on Wednesday, giving back a portion of Tuesday’s 2.06% gain that had lifted it to $58.81. The retreat pushed the gold-silver ratio to 70:1, underscoring just how much silver has lagged its yellow counterpart this year. The session’s decline was modest—ranging from 1.4% to 1.9% depending on the pricing source—but it highlighted the market’s sensitivity to competing narratives.
A sharp drop in U.S. consumer prices should have provided unambiguous support. The annual inflation rate came in at 3.5% in June, well below May’s 4.2% reading and missing the 3.8% consensus. On a month-over-month basis, prices actually fell 0.4%—the first monthly decline since 2020. Producer prices also weakened, sliding 0.3% in June, the steepest drop in 14 months.
Lower inflation is typically bullish for silver because the metal carries no yield, making it relatively more attractive when real rates fall. But the Federal Reserve poured cold water on that logic. At his congressional hearing on Tuesday, Fed Governor Kevin Warsh stressed the central bank’s commitment to price stability without hinting at easier policy. Meanwhile, Governor Lisa Cook warned that tariffs, the Middle East conflict, and heavy AI-related investment could reignite inflationary pressures.
The result: markets now see roughly a 50% probability of a rate hike in September—not a cut. That hawkish backdrop is keeping silver bulls on a short leash, even as the inflation data itself looks supportive.
Complicating the outlook is a sharp escalation in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. President Donald Trump announced a renewed blockade on Iranian shipping and demanded compensation from countries benefiting from American security efforts in the region. Over the weekend, U.S. and Iranian forces exchanged fresh strikes; by Tuesday, the U.S. military had launched additional airstrikes and imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports.
Shipping traffic through the strategic chokepoint has cratered, according to tracking data. Roughly 20% of the world’s oil trade normally passes through Hormuz, so the disruption is already pushing oil prices higher. That adds a second layer of inflation risk that the Fed cannot ignore—and it keeps silver in a volatile tug-of-war between safe-haven demand and the macro drag of higher energy costs.
While day-to-day trading fixates on rate expectations and geopolitics, the structural case for silver has only tightened. The Silver Institute projects a 46.3-million-ounce deficit for 2026, marking the sixth straight year of shortfalls. Mining output is expected to fall by 2.5 million ounces, even as industrial demand—which already accounts for 58% of total consumption—continues to expand on the back of solar, electric vehicles, and artificial intelligence.
Solar manufacturers have notably reduced their silver usage by 19% this year, substituting copper instead. But that thrifting has done little to close the overall gap. Comex inventories have shrunk by 75% from their 2020 peak, standing at just 79.9 million ounces—a clear sign of physical tightening. And with roughly 70% of global silver output produced as a byproduct of copper, lead, and zinc mining, there is little room to ramp up supply quickly.
The second quarter was brutal for silver: it lost $16.57 an ounce, or 22.04%, the worst quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2020. Paul Wong of Sprott attributes the slide to normalisation in the options market, but he stresses that the physical inventory drain leaves the long-term bull case intact. He expects supply deficits to persist for another seven to eight years, driven by demand from solar, EVs, AI, and the military sector.
Major banks share that conviction. JPMorgan sees an average price of $81 in its base case, with a path above $80 by year-end and $100 by 2030. Bank of America’s bull case targets $100–$133. The LBMA consensus stands at $79.57. Technical support is pegged near $57, with a deeper floor between $55.50 and $56.00. Resistance sits around $59.42–$59.57.
For now, silver remains stuck between the Fed’s hawkish posture, the Hormuz shock, and a supply deficit that keeps widening. The interplay between those forces—rather than any single catalyst—will determine whether the metal finally breaks out of its range-bound rut.
Gold’s recent price action tells a story of two opposing forces. On Wednesday, the metal slipped to $4,044.10 per ounce, reversing a sharp rally from the previous session when it had surged more than 2% to close at $4,067.50. The about-face came as escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz pushed crude oil higher, reigniting inflation fears and muddying the outlook for Federal Reserve policy.
Brent crude climbed above $85 a barrel for its third straight winning session after a new wave of US airstrikes against Iran and the reinstatement of a naval blockade near the strategic waterway. The oil rally threatens to undo the relief that gold traders had drawn just a day earlier from softer-than-expected US inflation data. June’s annualized consumer price index came in at 3.5%, down from 4.2% in May and below the 3.8% forecast. Despite that dovish signal, markets still price roughly a 50% probability of a Fed rate hike in September, with rising energy costs now casting doubt on the disinflation narrative.
The net effect has been a grinding weekly loss. Gold is down 1.06% over the past five trading days and sits 28.13% below its January record high of $5,626.80. At the other end, the metal is just 3.66% above its late-October low, a reminder of how quickly sentiment can shift. The relative strength index stands at 40.4, indicating bearish momentum without quite reaching oversold territory.
Yet for all the near-term headwinds, a formidable buyer continues to absorb supply. China’s central bank extended its gold purchasing streak to a 20th consecutive month in June, adding 480,000 fine ounces, or 14.93 tonnes. That represents a 50% surge in monthly buying compared with May – an aggressive accumulation pace at a time when gold was trading near a quarterly trough. Beijing’s strategy remains clear: diversify foreign exchange reserves and reduce dollar dependence, even though gold still accounts for less than 10% of the country’s reserve portfolio.
This is not an isolated phenomenon. Global central bank purchases have now exceeded 1,000 tonnes annually for three straight years, providing a structural floor beneath prices. On the supply side, Metals Focus estimates that total gold supply will expand by only about 3% in 2026, with both mine output and recycling growing modestly. The mismatch between tepid supply growth and insatiable official-sector demand forms a bedrock argument for bulls.
That bullish thesis, however, faces a fresh challenge from one of Wall Street’s most closely watched forecasters. JPMorgan slashed its Q4 2026 gold price target by a quarter, from $6,000 to $4,500 per ounce. The bank cited softer demand from key purchasing segments and growing price sensitivity to real interest rates. An EU embargo on Sudanese gold – a relatively small but symbolic supply-side drag – has further dampened sentiment.
The revision does not represent a wholesale abandonment of the long-term case. JPMorgan retains a structurally bullish view, pointing to central bank buying and physical demand as reliable supports through 2027. But the near-term outlook has clearly darkened. A weak US inflation print could still revive the metal, as lower real rates would reduce the opportunity cost of holding gold. The next big test arrives with the Fed’s upcoming decision: dovish signals could quickly propel prices back toward the $4,200–$4,300 zone.
Not all forecasters are paring back. HSBC, for example, remains more sanguine. The bank sees gold trading in a $3,800–$4,700 range during the second half of 2026, with a year-end target of $4,750 and a further climb to $5,025 by the end of 2027. That view echoes the fundamental story: tight supply, steady central bank accumulation, and the eventual turning of the interest-rate cycle.
Technically, the yellow metal is trading roughly 6.4% below its 50-day moving average of $4,345 – a level that often acts as resistance. The tug-of-war between geopolitical risk premiums and a potentially more restrictive Fed leaves gold trapped in a narrow range. For now, the oil-driven inflation scare appears to have the upper hand, but the persistent presence of central banks in the market suggests the downside may be limited.
The coming days will be shaped by three variables: the trajectory of crude prices as the Hormuz crisis evolves, the next batch of US economic data, and any shift in Fed communication. Until one of those forces decisively breaks the current equilibrium, gold is likely to remain a market of two halves – pulled between the fear of rising rates and the steady hand of official-sector buying.
Silver edges higher as Hormuz tensions and Fed caution pull in opposite directions
Silver moved back toward the 59 US-dollar mark on Tuesday as traders weighed a jump in Middle East risk against a still-restrictive US interest-rate backdrop. The metal traded at around 58.66 US dollars per ounce, up about 1.2 percent from the previous day, while on COMEX it climbed 1.42 US dollars to 59.28 US dollars per ounce.
The latest bid came after a sharp deterioration in the security situation around the Strait of Hormuz. The UKMTO said an unknown projectile hit a cargo ship off the coast of Oman in the strategic waterway, stoking risk premiums across commodity markets. US President Donald Trump had already warned on Monday that talks with Iran were the “last chance” to reach an agreement on reopening the key passage, and also threatened continued maritime blocking of Iranian ports if no deal is reached.
That mix of diplomacy and disruption has helped keep silver supported at a time when investors are again looking at the metal as a hedge against geopolitical shocks. Lower energy prices and easing worries about Hormuz have also fed into the broader precious-metals bid by cooling inflation expectations, even if the day’s move was driven by the fresh escalation.
A second source of support came from South Korea. The Bank of Korea said it would buy physical gold again after a 13-year pause, sourcing domestic production that had been earmarked for export so as not to strain the local market. The central bank plans to work with LS MnM, the Korea Exchange and the Korea Securities Depository. Its gold reserves stand at 104.4 tonnes, low by global standards, and the move is meant to build holdings over the long term as geopolitical risks rise. That backdrop tends to bolster sentiment across precious metals, including silver.
At the same time, the Federal Reserve is keeping a lid on enthusiasm. The central bank left its policy rate unchanged at 3.50 to 3.75 percent, but the vote split was notably hawkish: three members backed an immediate rate increase. A tighter-for-longer stance typically weighs on non-yielding assets, and the market is pricing a 68 percent probability of another rate move in the coming month. That helps explain why silver has been unable to break decisively above 62 US dollars.
The chart picture remains mixed. Silver is still about six percent below its 50-day average of 62.12 US dollars, according to Economies.com, and the RSI is 46.2, a neutral reading. Year to date, the metal is down more than 17 percent, and it remains more than 50 percent below January’s high of 121.78 US dollars. In another reading, January 2026 brought a peak of 121.62 US dollars, leaving the price roughly 52 percent beneath that record. Either way, the distance from the highs is still substantial.
On the physical demand side, the picture is less bleak than the price action suggests. Solar power has long been the main growth engine for silver, but the industry is accelerating its shift toward “desilvering” as producers switch from silver to copper plating to cut material costs. Estimates point to a 19 percent drop in solar demand in 2026, to about 151 million ounces.
That decline is being partly offset by new sources of industrial demand. The build-out of data centers for artificial intelligence is consuming more silver because of its conductivity, and electric vehicles remain a steady user of the metal as well, with each car requiring between 25 and 50 grams. The semiconductor industry is also cited as a support for the physical market.
Even so, the supply side continues to look tight. 2026 would mark the sixth straight year of a silver market deficit, leaving physical availability constrained regardless of fluctuations in the futures market. For now, traders appear stuck between a technical floor around 57 US dollars and the prospect of another move higher if the Hormuz situation worsens or if inflation and Fed expectations shift in silver’s favor.