The White House has gone quiet on crypto policy since releasing its broad report in July, and without pressure from the top, Congress has dithered on delivering the regulatory clarity that the blockchain industry has long been seeking.

Why it matters: The window for action is closing faster than you think.

State of play: Congress moved with impressive speed on stablecoin legislation earlier this year. But the much larger and more complex market structure bill — covering how new digital assets are issued and traded — is behind schedule.

• The Clarity Act, which passed in the House, now sits in the Senate Banking Committee, where leaders have drafted a discussion bill — the Responsible Financial Innovation Act — and hope to hold a markup this month.
• Meanwhile, the Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to release its own draft legislation on crypto regulation soon.

The big picture: The wildcard in this whole story is, as ever, the president.

• The White House released its big report on crypto policy at the end of July, but since then crypto hasn't been a hot topic at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
• With no push from the president, Congress could end up dragging its feet long enough that election season kicks in, and if market structure doesn't cross the finish line by the time members start worrying about November 2026, then the crypto industry is likely in for a long wait.
• If that happens, another election could reboot the conversation entirely.

Zoom out: Sure, it's true that Congress is not the only locus of control here. The SEC and the CFTC, the two agencies set to regulate the industry under market structure, are already well positioned to take stress off the industry.

• SEC chair Paul Atkins has launched Project Crypto to update rules and regulations. He reiterated this week a plan for an innovation exemption, such that crypto firms can operate under supervision. Atkins is targeting the end of the year.
• The CFTC has a crypto sprint underway to fulfill the obligations laid out in the White House report. The agency has already created a path for foreign exchanges to operate in the U.S.
• And the SEC and CFTC made a great show of planning to work together.

The latest: The government shutdown has slowed everything in Washington, including crypto. Reduced staff at the regulatory agencies will likely create a backlog in D.C., which won't make it easy to get to the new work, like crafting either crypto legislation or regulations.

What we're watching: Crypto's momentum in Washington has slowed to a crawl, and lawmakers seem to sense the window is closing.

• "We must keep pace with the rest of the globe by enacting digital asset market structure by the end of the year," House Financial Services Committee chair French Hill (R–Ark.) wrote in a September op-ed.

The bottom line: At the moment, there aren't many encouraging signs.

Binance exchange token BNB is wildly outperforming the rest of the market.

The big picture: BNB is the king of exchange tokens, but Binance, the giant company that created it, has made it much larger than that.

Driving the news: BNB is up almost 50% over the last month, the only coin in the top 20 with that kind of growth.

• Amidst the surge, Binance founder CZ announced a $1 billion fund for projects building on the BNB chain.

How it works: Exchange tokens give the big trading venues a way to raise money, and improve customer stickiness, without actually selling equity.

• They work somewhat like loyalty programs. If users buy the tokens, they get discounts on trades (as well as other perks, such as access to airdrops).
• With BNB, a user can massively cut their trading fees, but it's gotten very expensive to make any meaningful dent with BNB price rising so much.
• The Binance chain also uses transaction fees to buy back and burn BNB. This creates supply pressure which, in theory, should prop up the price.

Flashback: BNB started on the Ethereum blockchain, but Binance decided to make its own and moved the token there.

State of play: Activity on the Binance chain is surging right now.

• The token is big enough that it has attracted digital asset treasury company interest, too, which puts pressure on supply.

Zoom out: It's good to be king.

• Lots of exchanges have tokens, but there's no general rally in exchange tokens. BNB has all the gas.

🪆 The EU is mulling sanctions on a ruble-backed stablecoin. (Bloomberg)

🐂 Morgan Stanley is allowing its advisors to recommend a 4% bitcoin allocation to opportunistic portfolios. (The Block)

🏦 Citi Ventures backed BVNK, a cross-border stablecoin payment startup. (Blockworks)

🟦 Block is bucking the stablecoin trend with a new bitcoin payments option for users of Square payments. (Decrypt)