Recently, there have been reports in the market that the Federal Reserve plans to buy $81.65 billion worth of short-term government bonds. Many are discussing whether this will trigger a bull market in the crypto space. However, this judgment might be overly optimistic. As an analyst who has long focused on macro policies, it’s necessary to clarify this matter.

It is true that this round of operations is nearing its end, but to infer that mainstream coins and small-cap tokens will rise collectively based on this alone is somewhat wishful thinking.

Someone might ask: Since the Federal Reserve is printing money to buy assets, why isn’t this considered market stimulation? Here, it’s important to distinguish between two core concepts—the current operations of the Fed and what true quantitative easing (QE) actually entails.

Let me illustrate with a simple analogy: think of the market as a car, and the Federal Reserve as a mechanic.

What exactly is true QE? It’s like the car has run out of fuel and even the engine is having issues. The mechanic’s approach is to fill the tank completely and repair the engine, with the goal of restarting the car and getting it to run normally. This directly increases the total money supply in the market, and excess funds will eventually flow into stocks, cryptocurrencies, and other risk assets, making the market naturally more likely to rise. The logic behind the massive bull market in 2020 was exactly this—large-scale QE directly pushed up the prices of various risk assets.

What is the Fed doing now? It’s more like noticing that a tire is a bit deflated, and adding some air to ensure the car can run smoothly without breaking down halfway. The core goal of this operation is to stabilize short-term interest rates and ease short-term liquidity pressures in the market. In plain terms, this is a form of "technical maintenance," far from the scale of "massive blood transfusions" that QE represents. Moreover, these funds are mostly circulating between banks and institutions, making it difficult for large amounts to flow into risk asset markets as during QE periods.

Therefore, rather than having overly high expectations for this operation, it’s better to continue observing the policy’s subsequent developments and actual changes in market liquidity.