Government shutdown scares never fail to knock BTC’s price down, even when nothing much actually happens. It follows the same pattern every time. Congress gets hung up on a spending bill. The deadline gets closer. People start talking about what happens if they don’t reach an agreement. Then, at the very last minute, they pass a temporary funding measure, and everything continues as usual. The practical effects are usually minimal. Government employees receive their pay after a short delay. Every day transactions aren’t interrupted, but BTC drops anyway.
This happened again in September 2025. After weeks of warnings about a possible shutdown, lawmakers managed to pass a funding bill just before time ran out. You would think that with the uncertainty resolved, the BTC price would stabilize or even recover. Instead, it kept falling.
I remember watching the charts that night, shaking my head. The bill passed at 11:47 p.m., markets were closed, yet Sunday night futures opened lower, and BTC got dragged right along with them. Nobody was celebrating the “crisis averted” moment. They were just relieved they still had dollars coming in.
The expectation has always been that a government shutdown should be BTC’s moment. If the government can’t pay its employees or maintain basic operations, people may start seeking a form of money that is not dependent on politicians reaching an agreement. But that’s not what happened. When these shutdown threats come along, people don’t rush to buy BTC. They still want to make sure they have dollars available, even if they don’t trust the system completely.
I spoke with a friend who works for the Park Service during the last big one. He told me the first thing he did when the shutdown looked real was pull cash out of the ATM and stock the fridge, because he wasn’t sure when the next paycheck would land. BTC never even crossed his mind. The same story applies to TSA personnel, air traffic controllers, and everyone on a government salary. They need dollars yesterday, not sats tomorrow.
The reason comes down to what people actually use money for. Even during a shutdown threat, every significant expense—rent, groceries, utilities—has to be paid in dollars. There aren’t many places where you can walk in and pay with BTC for everyday purchases. So, when there’s uncertainty about whether checks will arrive on time, the priority becomes securing whatever can be spent reliably. Dollars remain the only practical option.
My landlord still wants rent on the first. The electric company doesn’t take sats. The grocery store down the block looks at me funny when I even mention crypto. Until that changes, dollars win every panic.
This pattern has repeated itself consistently. During the 35-day shutdown at the end of 2018, BTC lost more than half its value. Similar declines happened during other periods of market uncertainty. The specific cause doesn’t seem to matter much. When there’s any perception of instability, BTC gets treated the same way as other assets that carry higher risk.
The network itself continues operating without any problems during all of this. Transactions continue to be processed, and blocks keep getting mined. But that technical reliability doesn’t prevent the price from dropping. The issue is that BTC still functions primarily as something people hold rather than something they spend.
I run a node, I mine a little on the side, everything hums along perfectly when Washington is throwing a tantrum. Doesn’t matter. Price still bleeds because nobody is spending it at Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT).
As long as paying for everyday needs requires dollars, BTC will react similarly during these kinds of events. People simply won’t increase their holdings of something they can’t use to cover their immediate obligations. The expectation that a government funding crisis would drive adoption of an independent monetary system hasn’t materialized because the practical barriers to using that system remain in place.
Shutdown threats expose this disconnect clearly. These are the circumstances where BTC demonstrates its value as a system that operates independently of government funding decisions. Until it becomes practical to use BTC for ordinary payments, however, its price behavior during these episodes will continue to resemble that of other speculative holdings rather than a widely utilized form of money.
One day, the off-ramps might actually work both ways. Until then, every time the government flirts with missing payroll, expect BTC to take another unnecessary beating while the dollar stays king of the panic.
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Source: https://coingeek.com/when-govt-almost-shuts-down-btc-takes-the-hit/
