The United States Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has increased by $586 billion—to $5.25 trillion—in the week of March 18–25, according to an official report. This means that on average, the Fed has been printing roughly $970,000 every second during that time period in its efforts to keep the market alive amid the coronavirus outbreak.

In fact, the Fed has been printing the equivalent of Bitcoin’s market cap every 35 hours.

According to Bloomberg, this is the first time ever when the Fed’s balance sheet topped $5 trillion. Investor panic over the global spread of COVID-19 has prompted the central bank to launch several liquidity initiatives such as bond-buying programs. The scale of its current efforts is reportedly much larger than the similar initiatives the Fed undertook during the last financial crisis.

The US may already be in a recession. Will Bitcoin struggle with it? Image: Shutterstock

How would a US recession affect Bitcoin?

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show this morning, US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said, “We may well be in a recession.” He ascribed the country’s economic downturn to the coronavirus, the global pandemic that has infected over half a million people and has billions on lockdown.  As the coronavirus started sweeping through the US, it battered the US economy and crashed global markets. Bitcoin was not exempt. At one point, the price of BTC sunk to a low of $4,100, its worst price since Marc...

NewsCoins
4 min read
Robert Stevens

As Decrypt reported, the US has agreed on a $6 trillion stimulus package, which will involve $560 billion going to individuals and $500 billion to large corporations.

While this might seem a lot, apparently it’s just a drop in the bucket. Neel Kashkari, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said, on March 22, that the Federal Reserve has an “infinite amount of cash.”

Speaking on 60 minutes, Kashkari said, "There's enough cash in the financial system, and there's an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve. We will do whatever we need to do to make sure there's enough cash in the banking system."

But if the supply of USD is infinite, doesn’t that make the dollar worthless?

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