As the U.S. government enters its second week of shutdown, the clock is ticking for lawmakers hoping to pass the country’s first comprehensive cryptocurrency framework – and every day of silence adds uncertainty to an already fragile process.
Behind closed doors, work on the long-awaited crypto market structure bill has slowed to a crawl. The legislation, meant to finally clarify who regulates what – the SEC or the CFTC – was inching toward a Senate vote before the shutdown struck.
Now, progress has stalled as agency advisors, the unseen architects of the bill’s technical language, remain furloughed.
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Political Reality Meets Crypto Ambition
For a brief moment this summer, optimism had flickered through Washington’s blockchain circles. After the passage of the GENIUS Act, which gave stablecoins a clear federal framework, momentum seemed to build for broader reform. But the shutdown has turned that progress into quicksand.
“This kind of disruption hits right at the heart of how Washington works,” said one policy strategist familiar with the process. “Without staff, everything slows — and timing is everything.”
