NEW YORK — The U.S. government shutdown is now the longest on record, breaking the previous record of 35 days on Wednesday as lawmakers remain in an impasse over funding the federal budget — an impasse that could be reinforced by Democrats’ landslide victory Tuesday night in an off-year election.
Expectations had been growth that Democrats could give in to their demands and vote to fund the government as early as this week or early next week without getting concessions in their efforts to cut health care premiums which increased this month. But Tuesday’s election could further delay any agreement between elected officials, people following the process told CoinDesk, noting that the amount of support Democrats received above poll expectations. And this delay, by extension, could further delay further work on crypto market structure legislation.
One person who works in politics said they expected Tuesday’s election results to push back any deal-making at multiple levels, but a markup in the market structure by Thanksgiving was still possible.
Another person working in policy also said it would be possible for Congress to pass market structure legislation, but that likely won’t happen by the end of 2025 — although it’s possible that legislation could pass both houses of Congress by the end of 2026.
As CoinDesk reported, the longer the shutdown lasts, the slimmer the chances of market structure legislation passing Congress become. Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association, said Wednesday that the extension of the shutdown means it is becoming increasingly likely that this bill will be delayed until 2026.
Many government experts in this field were furloughed during the shutdown, leaving fewer people capable of drafting legislative language, people said.
Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets at the White House, 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 put pressure, holding regular meetings,” he said. “I’m spending most of my time on Capitol Hill these days, meeting with senators from both sides to make this happen. I’m optimistic that we’ve seen enough progress recently that the trend line is moving in the right direction.”
The government shutdown helped in one sense, he said on stage and in a subsequent conversation with CoinDesk TV, in that it allowed lawmakers to meet with his team to discuss the details of the bill.
“We had an opportunity to really engage with offices (and) staff and members on the substance of this bill in a way that we might not have been able to do otherwise if there had been a bunch of other competing priorities,” he said.
