The U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, recently announced that the Fed will now shift its focus from targeting inflation to closing “unemployment shortfalls.” The Fed, in essence, is doubling-down on the same inflationary policies with which it experimented during the 2008 global financial crisis. Speaking at a virtual Jackson Hole event recently, Powell said the Fed would not raise rates anytime soon. He also said that the Fed would tolerate higher inflation, departing from the historical norm of a 2% inflation target. This cheap money and higher inflation policy take quantitative easing to an entirely new level. Related: Jerome …

The MIT Digital Currency Initiative, or DCI, is helping the federal reserve bank of Boston build a digital currency with the goal of scaling for consumer use. The DCI’s director Neha Narula told Cointelegraph: “We're trying to build a high throughput, low latency transaction system that could be used by consumers and could handle the security and resilience required for a national currency.” The multi-year collaboration between the two organizations is still in very early stages and not much information is being released to the public. Yet the focus is not on building a newer version of interbank digital ledger, …

There are more U.S. dollars than ever, but the rate at which they move around the economy has never been so low. That was according to the Federal Reserve’s own statistics on Aug. 31, which showed that a collapse in M2 money supply velocity had come despite record money printing. The rise of the “cantillionaires” The M2 supply topped $18 trillion in 2020 thanks to coronavirus countermeasures, while velocity fell below 1.125 for the first time since at least the 1940s. This year marks a clear contrast to historical data, with sudden volatility in both metrics worryingly clear to see. …

Amid a year that has been anything but normal, the United States' Federal Reserve, or the Fed, has collected an impressive number of financial assets. "The Fed now owns a total of 22,913 different securities according to Bloomberg," said the twitter account for the Zero Hedge financial blog on Aug. 30, adding: "It is the world's biggest investor." In response to the rise of COVID-19, the U.S. government closed businesses, urging citizens to stay home in an effort to derail the virus' spread. Those actions, however, caused negative economic consequences leading to subsequent corrective attempts by the government, including massive …

The Economic Policy Symposium hosted annually by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City — an event attended by finance ministers, central bank managers and academics, among others — was held virtually due to COVID-19 concerns this year, and there was little virtual about the announcement. The U.S. dollar would be fed to the wolves. A monumental shift from an already-unprecedented monetary policy stance To be sure, the Fed has persisted with an accommodative monetary policy posture since the Great Recession despite strong years of growth in the middle of the Obama years and sluggish yet consistently positive growth the …

With the COVID-19 crisis showing no signs of abating in the United States, central banks around the world have deployed financial airbags in the form of quantitative easing, and they plan to do a lot more. Modern Monetary Theory has taken center stage, and we are witnessing it in action. It’s a sight that will leave you awestruck: like witnessing the financial version of the first atomic explosion of Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. What is going on with the world’s economy is unprecedented. We are entering completely new and uncharted territories, and all bets are off with respect …

After what has been a crazy year in almost every sense of the word, businesses are left wondering how to proceed, Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse said. "The pandemic is throwing so many playbooks out the window," he posited in an Aug. 28 tweet. "Yesterday's action flies in the face of decades of precedent," he said, pointing toward an Aug. 27 article from the Wall Street Journal on the U.S. Federal Reserve choosing to keep interest rates low at the possible expense of higher inflation. "Signs point to further dollar debasement in the near term (leading to further diversification of …

This week was quite eventful for crypto and traditional markets, and investors will note that as central banks introduce new monetary expansion policy, Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins have begun to forge their own path. Before reading the rundown, catch up on the most-read stories centered around the price of Bitcoin, the macroeconomic picture and the DeFi phenomenon gaining traction. ⁠Ethereum price lingers at key resistance days before $112M options expiry US money velocity crash in Q2 boosts $288K Bitcoin prediction A ⁠major crypto firm expects Polkadot (DOT) to become a top 3 blockchain Bitcoin briefly hits $11.6K as Fed says …

Bitcoin (BTC) is inches away from getting the same boost that helped it hit $12,500 earlier this month, data shows. On Aug. 28, the U.S. dollar currency index (DXY), fresh from losses caused by a speech from the Federal Reserve, returned to crucial low levels. Bitcoin’s $12,000 trigger reappears At press time on Friday, DXY measured 92.28 — its lowest since Aug. 19. At that time, the index had seen years of decline, with 92.17 marking the floor which challenged precious lows from April 2018. Safe havens, including Bitcoin, appeared to benefit throughout the summer as DXY fell — gold …

Bitcoin (BTC) spiked to $11,600 on Aug. 27 as the United States Federal Reserve committed to maintaining an average of 2% inflation. Data from Coin360 and Cointelegraph Markets showed BTC/USD jumping several hundred dollars on Thursday as Fed Chair Jerome Powell delivered a speech on the state of the economy. Cryptocurrency market daily snapshot, Aug. 27. Source: Coin360 Powell: inflation can go “moderately above 2%” Markets had been waiting for signs about inflation retargeting, with rumors previously suggesting that the Fed would allow rates to go as high as 4%. In the event, Powell confirmed that inflation would be permitted …

Bitcoin (BTC) is getting most of its price support from the Federal Reserve itself, entrepreneur Tyler Winklevoss believes. In a tweet on Aug. 25, the Gemini exchange co-founder argued that Fed policy is and will continue to bolster Bitcoin’s fortunes. Inflation boost is a Bitcoin boost The reason, Winklevoss said, is that the fallout from coronavirus containment measures across the United States’ economy will mean that the central bank accidentally makes Bitcoin more appealing and the dollar less so. On Thursday, Fed chairman Jerome Powell will deliver a speech that commentators expect will contain an announcement on letting inflation rise …

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has entered into a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to better understand the concept of digital currencies. The bank will work with MIT researchers on a multiyear project to develop and test the use cases of a “hypothetical” central bank digital currency (CBDC), said Fed Governor Lael Brainard during her speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She said that digital currencies bring both opportunities and threats related to privacy, illicit activity and financial stability, and the Reserve must clearly understand both aspects of it as they proceed towards the …