Crypto majors bounced back Wednesday after Tuesday’s CLARITY Act selloff, with bitcoin climbing back above $77,500 and XRP leading the recovery with a gain of more than 9 percent. Ether rose around 5 percent to near $2,514, BNB added 5.4 percent and solana recovered roughly 5.6 percent, according to exchange ticker data aggregated across major venues.
The rebound followed one of the sharpest single-day drops in weeks. Bitcoin fell about 5 percent on Tuesday after the Senate voted 49-50 to block the CLARITY Act from advancing, touching $75,000 before buyers stepped in. More than $770 million in leveraged positions were liquidated during the slide, most of them longs, according to Coinglass data. Ether lost around 7 percent and XRP dropped roughly 11 percent, giving back much of the ground it had gained in a month-long run that had made it the best-performing major of the period. XRP’s month had included a 35 percent gain that put it at the top of the major-cap performance table before the vote erased a chunk of it in a single session.
XRP leads the recovery
XRP recovered to around $1.40 in early Wednesday trading, still short of the $1.50 resistance level it tested before the vote. Spot trading volume on major exchanges had hit a six-month high earlier in the month, and XRP Ledger transaction volume rose 79 percent in recent data even as the number of active accounts declined, a pattern that suggests heavier activity from a smaller pool of addresses. That kind of concentration can cut both ways. It points to committed users moving real value, but it also means the network’s activity figures are more fragile than the headline number suggests.
The recovery came despite the legislative setback still hanging over the market. Senator Thom Tillis filed a motion to reconsider within hours of the failed cloture vote, and a revote could come as soon as September 17. Whether the bill’s backers can flip a single vote in a day is unclear, and some analysts argue the failure effectively ends Senate market structure work for 2026. Polymarket traders put the odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law this year at 19 percent before the vote, down from 31 percent a day earlier, and those odds have not recovered.
The House passed the CLARITY Act in July 2025, so the Senate was the last step for a bill the industry had spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars supporting. The National Sheriffs’ Association had dropped its opposition earlier in the month, removing one source of law-enforcement resistance, but disputes over stablecoin rewards, tokenized equities and conflict-of-interest provisions tied to the president’s family were never fully resolved. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon had said banks would fight the bill in its current form over the stablecoin yield question.
Not every trader sees the bounce as durable. Cardano fell below $0.20 during the selloff and remained near that level Wednesday morning. Analysts noted that when altcoins fall harder than bitcoin, it usually signals traders are hunting liquidity rather than chasing upside, and that bounces in that environment often turn out to be short covering rather than fresh demand. Dogecoin and other high-beta names showed similar patterns, dropping harder than bitcoin on the way down and recovering faster on the way up without any coin-specific news to justify either move.
Fed decision still the main event
The bigger test arrives Wednesday afternoon. The Federal Open Market Committee will announce its rate decision at 2 p.m. ET, with futures pricing a 93 percent chance of a quarter-point hike. The 10-year Treasury yield touched 5.04 percent on Tuesday, its highest level since 2007, keeping pressure on assets that pay no yield. Oil near $108 after strikes on Saudi infrastructure has added an inflation overhang that makes the case for hawkish guidance stronger, not weaker, and Saudi Arabia has begun telling European refiners that September crude cargos are being canceled because of a pipeline closure.
A CNBC Fed survey published Tuesday found 86 percent of respondents expect at least two rate hikes over the next year, removing any notion that Wednesday’s decision would be a one-off. BlackRock’s Rick Rieder said flatly that the Fed is going to hike, while one strategist argued the committee should go 50 basis points to keep the 10-year yield from pushing further past 5 percent. Council of Economic Advisers commentary pushed the other way, calling a hike a mistake. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, meanwhile, argued the FOMC could trigger a very big rally in equities if the statement lands softer than expected, a view that would apply to crypto too.
Bitcoin’s ability to hold $77,500 through the announcement matters for the altcoin complex. Analyst scenarios published ahead of the meeting put a sustained break below $75,000 on a path toward $70,000 to $72,000 for bitcoin, which would almost certainly drag the majors lower again. Glassnode data shows buying interest concentrated around 1.07 million BTC in the $83,000 to $86,000 range, making that zone the key resistance if the market does turn higher. Coinglass liquidation maps had put $1.72 billion in long liquidations below $74,860 and $832 million in shorts above $82,084 before the vote, and Tuesday’s move cleared part of the long side.
Flows offer a mixed signal
Spot ETF flows had turned positive just before the vote. Ethereum ETFs took in $121 million on September 14, their second straight positive session, while bitcoin funds ended a four-day outflow streak with $160 million. Solana and XRP funds added roughly $11 million each the same day. BlackRock bought $251 million worth of ethereum earlier in the week as its ETF logged a 20-day inflow streak, and corporate treasuries kept adding. Bitmine bought another 27,180 ETH last week, lifting its holdings to 5.96 million coins.
Whether those inflows survived Tuesday’s slide will only show in the next flow print. Bitfinex analysts flagged that part of the ethereum demand reflects collateral and basis-trade repositioning rather than organic new money, a caveat that applies to the broader altcoin complex too. Low volumes during the bounce point the same way. Spot volumes across the market rose about 12 percent during the recovery but remain well below the levels of the August rally.
For now, the market has bought itself a pause. The liquidation flush cleared excessive leverage, and bitcoin’s recovery above $77,500 keeps the September structure intact. But with a hawkish Fed decision hours away and the CLARITY Act’s fate unresolved, traders are treating the bounce as tentative until either catalyst resolves. The next 24 hours will say more about where this market is going than the past week did.