A government shutdown occurs because they spent too much; in other words they are irresponsible, even more so that there were so last minute that they were working on a deal hours before the deadline. A lack of confidence in central governments has correlated with increases in the price of bitcoin in the past. Irresponsibility regarding
financial matters affects the USD, and thus the USD-BTC exchange rate.
The last government shutdown in 2013 was also associated with a jump in the price of bitcoin. Some rationale on it:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3ddxg5/why-bitcoin-boomed-during-the-government-shutdownAnother example of the rationale:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2792941.0The tangible effect, as you point out, is small, but still 2 million workers who will not be paid or will be expected to work without pay. In 2013 they were all paid retroactively (even the ones that did no work), but we don't know that a future deal with include this this time. But the big effect is a lack of confidence in government.
Wow. I thought it was crazy that people even attribute that for the small rise, but I didn't know there was a precedent. I kind of don't buy it, because the rise was miniscule enough to have been normal market movement, and that Bitcoin was actually trading above $14,000 before the slide began, but I guess we'll see in the coming days. Correlation does not always equal causation after all.
Also, Roger Ver being supportive of Bitcoin in the article made me lol. How times have changed.