Federal Reserve Governor Christopher J. Waller stated Bitcoin “was going to finish up being one thing like digital gold,” describing the asset as a non-yielding retailer of worth whose value is sustained by collective perception fairly than money flows. The remarks got here on October 21, 2025, throughout a “Crypto in America” livestream, and so they observe with Waller’s longer-running view that bitcoin capabilities extra like a belief-driven commodity than a funds instrument.
Bitcoin Is ‘Like Digital Gold’
“Look, I’ve all the time argued that Bitcoin was going to finish up being one thing like digital gold. It’s a retailer of worth. It guarantees no return. It’s simply, you purchase it and maintain it for some appreciation. That’s precisely what you do. It’s commodities like gold. That’s it. There’s nothing improper with it. It has a constructive value. It doesn’t have any basic worth. I don’t suppose gold has actually any basic worth both,” Waller stated, earlier than including that belongings like gold and BTC can maintain costs by means of “perception equilibrium”—the expectation that another person can pay extra later.
The “digital gold” framing isn’t new for Waller. In prior appearances, he has argued that the majority crypto belongings have little intrinsic price however that bitcoin sits aside as a wealth-preservation car, akin to collectibles or treasured metals that persist as a result of markets settle for them as shops of worth. In a single such dialogue, he put it plainly: “Bitcoin to me is principally digital gold… It doesn’t have any basic intrinsic worth, however that’s okay.”
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Fed Governor Waller says Bitcoin is “like digital gold.” pic.twitter.com/IOY1892pKs
— Bitcoin Archive (@BTC_Archive) October 21, 2025
Waller’s newest feedback land because the Fed itself convenes coverage and expertise circles round digital belongings and funds innovation. Protection of his October 21 remarks—delivered as a part of the central financial institution’s opening to a payments-innovation agenda—emphasised each his characterization of BTC and his suggestion that the Fed ought to discover narrower entry fashions to its rails for innovators, an implicit nod to crypto-native corporations.
The “digital gold” analogy has additionally been adopted—generally fairly explicitly—by Waller’s boss. In December 2024, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stated on the New York Occasions DealBook Summit that folks use bitcoin “as a speculative asset,” calling it “like gold—it’s simply digital and digital,” and stressing that BTC competes with gold, not the US greenback. Powell’s phrasing has since been broadly cited because the clearest articulation from a sitting Fed Chair that BTC’s closest analogue is gold.
Powell’s 2024 feedback additionally echoed a fair earlier stance: in testimony and public remarks courting again years, he has repeatedly described bitcoin as a speculative retailer of worth “like gold,” a view that markets have tended to interpret as de-emphasizing bitcoin’s near-term function in funds whereas acknowledging its entrenchment as a bearer asset in portfolios.
Collectively, the Waller and Powell statements additional entrench a delineation that has change into frequent amongst financial officers: BTC as a non-yielding, belief-anchored retailer of worth, distinct from each financial institution cash and stablecoins designed for transactional use. In the meantime, Fed governor Barr lately warned that the GENIUS Act may defend Bitcoin from the central financial institution’s oversight.
At press time, BTC traded at $107,985.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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