U.S. Gov’t Shutdown is a Major Threat to the Cryptoasset Industry, 2019 & 2020 Top Global Economies

The U.S government has been in a shutdown for more than a month now. So far, this is the longest shutdown in the U.S history and it’s still proceeding since the Parliament in not in position to fund Trump’s idea of constructing a wall on the Mexican border.

Several industries are paralyzed and immobile, and employees are not being paid, having to recourse to living on foodstamps. 

According to a report by CCN: 

“It’s almost incomprehensible to anyone living outside the land of the plenty that the majority of its population lives from paycheck to paycheck. This is still the world’s largest economy, after all.”   

   

The condition also creates a very big risk for digital currencies and blockchain technology companies. The federal agencies which are responsible for virtual currency regulation such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the U.S SEC, have set all significant developments on ice, because of the shutdown.   

While in an interview with CCN, the senior product manager at BitBounce, Nishant Jacob, that currently has more than 1.4 million users to discover how the shutdown is poignant and touching his business.   

Nishant mentioned four significant ways:   

1.   Hiring employees   

He revealed that, as a business, they are not able access significant immigration services like e-verify and this has negatively affected the current workers of the company and the ability to hire highly skilled foreign graduates. The shutdown has led major problems with talent acquisition & retention.   

2.      Application delays   

Issues with delays while processing licensing applications and regulatory uncertainty is expected to happen, and this will make business planning very complicated. It is envisaged that this could more likely impact other firms in the industry also.   

3.   Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund approval by SEC delayed  

The U.S SEC is impacted by the shutdown. They have now less staff available to react mainly to emergency situations.   

4.   Loss of public positivity about digital currency

A decline in the public trust in various institutions ever since the financial breakdown is in part what has triggered the interest and boom around virtual currencies. The incidents such as the shutdown are expected to continue facilitating the suspicion and interest in more decentralised systems.   

In addition, Jamie Dimon the CEO JPMorgan anticipates than a long shutdown could likely cut U.S economic growth and development to zero. 

“Someone estimated that if it goes on for the whole quarter, it can reduce growth to zero,” Dimon told reporters.