The US government is entering its third week shut down, with a Senate vote scheduled for Monday evening to end the funding impasse, and a separate meeting on Wednesday where lawmakers and crypto executives will discuss the long-stalled crypto market structure bill.
The Senate will vote at 5:30 p.m. ET for the 11th time in an effort to end the shutdown. Approval and a presidential signature would reopen federal operations, while another failure would extend the stalemate.
Despite the gridlock, Congress remains active on other fronts. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats are expected to host a roundtable with crypto industry leaders from Coinbase, Kraken, Circle, Ripple and others to discuss the proposed US market-structure bill, according to a post on X by journalist Eleanor Terret.
The meeting, led by Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, comes after several Democratic senators introduced a counter-proposal to the crypto market structure bill that critics say would “kill DeFi” and undermine the bipartisan support the CLARITY Act received in the House in July.
The US market-structure bill is the Senate’s counterpart to the House’s CLARITY Act, which aims to create a comprehensive federal framework around digital assets.
The US government has been shut down since Oct. 1, making it the third-longest shutdowns in US history so far, trailing those of 1995 and 2018–2019.
Related: US Treasury opens second round of comments on Genius Act implementation
ETFs remain in the balance
What was shaping up to be a pivotal month for US crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has been stalled by the government shutdown. With the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency responsible for ETF approvals, operating with limited staff, key deadlines have come and gone without updates.
The first deadline to pass was Canary’s proposed Litecoin ETF on Oct. 2. On Oct. 7, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas said the ETF, as well as Canary’s HBAR ETF, appear to be finalized, though the shutdown will likely delay their launch.
As Cointelegraph reported, as many as 16 crypto exchange-traded funds are slated for October, including funds tracking Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Litecoin and others. Another 21 ETF applications were filed with the SEC during the first days of October.
There are also several pending applications for Solana- and Ethereum-based ETFs that include staking components.
Issuers such as Bitwise, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, CoinShares, Grayscale, Canary Capital and VanEck have all submitted amended S-1 filings to the SEC, updating their proposals to reflect new staking provisions.
Magazine: Quitting Trump’s top crypto job wasn’t easy: Bo Hines
