Fed chairman Colin Powell said on Monday that the Fed's actions have helped release more than $2 trillion to small businesses, cities and states. He said the Fed had returned most of the money from the cares bill and that other emergency lending instruments would be closed in the near future, except for the pay protection program (PPP).

In addition, Powell and other central bank governors attended the bank for International Settlements (BIS) video conference and once again expressed the Fed's position of "slowly" promoting digital currency.

Since the theme of the meeting was "global central bank innovation in the digital age", Powell did not talk more about the outlook for the US economy or monetary policy. For US stock investors, Powell's speech to join hands with Yellen in the congressional hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday is expected to have a greater impact on the market.

In his speech on Monday, Powell continued his previous position on digital currency, saying that the Federal Reserve has the obligation to stand at the forefront of understanding the technical challenges and the benefits of promoting the cost of digital dollar, but the Federal Reserve "is not in a hurry to promote this project".

In the research field, the Boston fed and MIT established a cooperative relationship last year. The two sides expect to spend two to three years more focusing on the assumption that the central bank supports cryptocurrency, rather than actually promoting the implementation of digital currency. Powell stressed in his speech that the Federal Reserve (promoting digital dollar) needs the support of Congress (legislation), the White House and the public, and this kind of work (requiring public participation) has not really started yet.

In addition, Powell and German central bank governor weidmann also expressed concern about whether there will be a competitive relationship between the central bank's digital dollar / euro and the private banking sector.

In addition to the "distant" digital dollar, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve continued his previous argument of looking down on cryptocurrency. In his speech, Powell said that cryptocurrency is highly volatile, so it is difficult to become a useful value storage tool, and there is nothing behind these "currencies". Therefore, cryptocurrency is mainly speculative assets, which is more like a substitute for gold compared with the US dollar.

(2021-3-23)