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Bitcoin Is ‘Like Electronic Gold,’ Says Federal Reserve Governor Waller

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Federal Reserve Governor Christopher J. Waller mentioned Bitcoin “was going to finish up being one thing like digital gold,” describing the asset as a non-yielding retailer of worth whose worth is sustained by collective perception moderately 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 features extra like a belief-driven commodity than a funds instrument.

Bitcoin Is ‘Like Electronic 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 flawed with it. It has a optimistic worth. It doesn’t have any elementary worth. I don’t suppose gold has actually any elementary worth both,” Waller mentioned, earlier than including that property 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 is just not new for Waller. In prior appearances, he has argued that the majority crypto property have little intrinsic value 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 one such dialogue, he put it plainly: “Bitcoin to me is mainly digital gold… It doesn’t have any elementary intrinsic worth, however that’s okay.”

Waller’s newest feedback land because the Fed itself convenes coverage and know-how circles round digital property and funds innovation. Coverage of his October 21 remarks—delivered as a part of the central bank’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—typically fairly explicitly—by Waller’s boss. In December 2024, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on the New York Times 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 relationship 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.

Together, the Waller and Powell statements additional entrench a delineation that has develop into widespread 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. Meanwhile, Fed governor Barr recently warned that the GENIUS Act might defend Bitcoin from the central financial institution’s oversight.

At press time, BTC traded at $107,985.

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