NEW YORK – The US government shutdown is now the longest on record, breaking the previous record of 35 days on Wednesday as lawmakers remain deadlocked over funding the federal budget, a stalemate that may be reinforced by Democrats’ sweeping victory Tuesday night in an off-year election.
Expectations had been rising that Democrats could give in on their demands and vote to fund the government as soon as this week or early next week without winning concessions in their effort to address health care premiums that rose this month. But Tuesday’s elections may further delay any agreement between elected officials, people who followed the process told CoinDesk, pointing to the amount of support Democrats received above polling expectations. And this delay, by extension, may further delay further work on crypto market structure legislation.
One person who works in politics said he expects Tuesday’s election results to delay any deal on multiple levels, but that a margin in the market structure by Thanksgiving is still possible.
Another political person similarly said that it would be possible for Congress to pass market structure legislation, but that was not likely to happen by the end of 2025, although they said it is possible that this legislation could pass both chambers of Congress by the end of 2026.
As CoinDesk has reported, the longer the shutdown lasts, the lower the chances of market structure legislation passing Congress. Summer Mersinger, executive director of the Blockchain Association, said Wednesday that the extension of the shutdown means it is increasingly likely that this bill will be moved to 2026.
Many of the government’s experts in this area have been laid off during the shutdown, leaving fewer people able to craft legislative language, it has been said.
Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House Presidential Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, 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 and hold regular meetings,” he said. “I spend most of my time on Capitol Hill these days, meeting with senators on both sides to get this done. I’m optimistic that we’ve seen enough progress recently to get the trend line moving in the right direction.”
The government shutdown helped in some ways, he said on stage and in a later conversation with CoinDesk TV, in that it allowed lawmakers time to meet with his team to discuss the details of the bill.
“We have had the opportunity to really interact with the offices [and] staff and members about the substance of this bill in a way that we otherwise would not have been able to, if there had been many other competing priorities,” he said.
