Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
NEW YORK – The US government shutdown is now the longest on record, breaking the previous record of 35 days on Wednesday, as lawmakers continue to be at an impasse over funding the federal budget – an impasse that may be strengthened by Tuesday night’s big victory for Democrats in an off-year election.
Expectations had been increasing that Democrats could give in to their demands and vote to fund the government as soon as this week or early next week without winning concessions in their effort to tackle health care premiums which has grown this month. But Tuesday’s election may further delay any deal between elected officials, people following the process told CoinDesk, pointing out the amount of support the Democrats received above voting expectations. And this delay, by extension, can also push additional work on the legislation of the structure of the crypto market.
An individual who works in politics said that he expected the election results on Tuesday to postpone any agreement on several levels, but a mark on the structure of the market by Thanksgiving was still possible.
Another individual who works in politics in a similar way said that Congress could pass the market structure legislation, but it was not likely to happen by the end of 2025 – although he said that it is possible that this legislation will pass through both houses of Congress by the end of 2026.
As CoinDesk he pointed outthe longer the shutdown lasts, the slimmer the chances of market structure legislation moving through Congress become. Summer Mersinger, the CEO of the Blockchain Association, said on Wednesday that the extension of the shutdown meant that it was becoming more likely that this bill would move into 2026.
Many of the government’s experts in this arena were laid off during the shutdown, leaving fewer people able to actually craft the legislative language, the people said.
Patrick Witt, the White House executive director of the President’s Digital Assets Advisory Council, told an audience at Ripple’s Swell conference on Wednesday that President Donald Trump still wants to see a final market structure bill on his desk by the end of 2025.
“We continue to apply pressure, have regular meetings,” he said. “I’ve spent most of my time on Capitol Hill these days, meeting with Senators from both sides to do this. I’m optimistic that we’ve seen enough progress recently as far as where the trend line is moving in the right direction.”
The government shutdown helped in a sense, he said on stage and in a later conversation with CoinDesk TV, as it allowed lawmakers time to meet with his team to discuss details in the bill.
“We had the opportunity to really engage with the offices [and] staff and members on the substance of this bill in a way that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to, if there had been a lot of other competing priorities,” he said.
