PANews reported on December 31 that according to Jinshi, Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said that cryptocurrencies should be considered an independent asset class rather than being lumped in with gold. She believes that cryptocurrencies are complex and do not yet have the conditions to become "currency." Daly pointed out that crypto assets need to define their uses, whether they are trading media, speculative assets, or value preservation tools, but their volatility and demand-driven value characteristics are significantly different from the stability of traditional currencies.

Daly's views differ from those of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who has previously likened Bitcoin to virtual gold rather than a competitor to the dollar, but both agree that cryptocurrencies do not currently qualify as money.