I speculate that this might be a sign of desperation. However, it might also be a sign that the American government might do another round of attacks against the cryptospace because the digidollar is coming soon hehehe.
Michael Lee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
An editorial for the New York Federal Reserve’s Liberty Street Economics blog just classified Bitcoin as “another example of fiat money.”
In a post entitled “Bitcoin is Not a New Type of Money,” New York Fed Research and Statistics economist Michael Lee and Research and Statistic’s group Senior Vice President Antoine Martin envision money in three categories: fiat, asset-backed, and claim-backed.
Lee and Martin classify “fiat money [as] intrinsically worthless objects that have value based on the belief that they will be accepted in exchange for valued goods and services.” Incredibly, they assert that central-bank issued currencies are not pure fiat because of their “legal tender status.” They then go on to label Bitcoin, which the CFTC has classified as a commodity, as a fiat currency.
“Examples of fiat money without legal tender status include Rai stones or Ithaca HOURs. And Bitcoin is just another example of fiat money.”
Read in full https://decrypt.co/32940/new-york-fed-bitcoin-fiat-money