Unless Republicans negotiate with Democrats and sign off on a bipartisan funding bill, the US government will shut down at midnight on Tuesday, likely delaying any consideration of a digital asset market structure bill in the Senate.
On Monday, the US House of Representatives and Senate leaders are scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump to negotiate terms to avoid a government shutdown. Though in the majority of both chambers of Congress, Republicans need additional support to pass a temporary funding bill to keep the government open, leading to Democrats asking for a reversal in many of the healthcare cuts from a budget bill signed into law in July — i.e., the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
A shutdown would effectively stop US lawmakers from considering or voting on any bills currently moving through Congress, including having Trump sign them into law, and likely any regulatory actions from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
This would mean that consideration of the digital asset market structure bill in the US Senate Banking Committee, already pushed from the end of September to October, could see additional delays.
Though partial or complete government shutdowns over policy disputes have occurred since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, Trump holds the record for being at the helm during the longest one in US history: 35 days in 2018 and 2019, over his plan to build a US-Mexico border wall. Lawmakers’ priorities during a shutdown would likely shift to continuing to fund the government rather than any unrelated bills like crypto market structure.
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What to expect from negotiations?
Trump said last week that “no meeting with [Democratic] Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive” to avoid a potential shutdown, with the White House later issuing a statement suggesting that the president would not be open to any negotiations. However, Trump is set to meet with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday.
Thune said in a Sunday interview that Republicans had a “simple, seven-week funding resolution” that would temporarily extend funding for the government through November. Jeffries pushed back on the characterization of the measure as a “clean bill” last week, saying that it did nothing to address Democrats’ call to reverse healthcare cuts in the July spending bill.
The market structure bill in the Senate, also known as the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, is expected to build upon the CLARITY Act passed by the House in July, clarifying the roles the CFTC and SEC would have in overseeing digital assets.
Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the bill’s most significant Republican proponents, initially planned to have it pass the banking committee by the end of September. Reports suggested that the committee had pushed consideration to late October, and a government shutdown could further delay this timeline.
Should negotiations fail and neither side agree to a funding bill, the US government will shut down at midnight Tuesday.
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