Recently, the Federal Reserve announced it would purchase $40 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds each month, causing a wave of surprise in the market and widespread talk of "quantitative easing." However, based on Powell's comments, this matter doesn't seem that simple.

You might think that the central bank directly creating new money to buy bonds is just QE. The details indeed look similar, but the underlying logic is vastly different.

The Fed's true intention is to maintain the normal operation of the financial system and prevent liquidity crises, rather than to stimulate economic growth. That’s why industry insiders refer to it as a "Reserve Management Purchase Program" — it sounds academic, but it reflects a completely different operational philosophy.

Quantitative easing has three core characteristics: First, the central bank creates new reserves to purchase assets (usually government bonds); second, the scale of purchases is relatively large compared to the total market, aiming to inject massive liquidity into the system; third, the central bank focuses on the quantity of purchases itself, rather than the ultimate interest rate level.

Reserve Management Purchases are quite different. Its core metric is whether the pace of asset purchases can keep up with the growth of non-reserve liabilities (such as circulating dollars and fiscal account funds). In other words, it’s a "just-in-time supply" fine-tuning, aimed at ensuring the system has sufficient liquidity rather than forcibly shoving a pile of money in.

From the perspective of the crypto market, the implications of this operation are very significant. QE usually pushes up risk asset prices and stimulates yield-seeking behavior. Reserve Management Purchases are more about "stability maintenance" and may indicate the Fed’s cautious attitude towards economic prospects. For crypto investors, understanding this distinction can help more accurately interpret the true meaning behind policy signals.