In the past two months, the Federal Reserve has taken aggressive and unprecedented steps to mitigate the lasting damage to the US economy from the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, the central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged in the 0% to 0.25% range, as it said, “We’re going to not be in any hurry to withdraw these measures or to lift off. We’re going to wait until we’re quite confident that the economy is well on the road to recovery,” said Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

Every dollar that can be printed, will be printed. https://t.co/MiNSr8EQgb

— Anil Lulla (@anildelphi) April 29, 2020

The Powell-led central bank is also committing to do whatever is necessary to get the economy back where it was before the pandemic.

Powell repeated it during the Q&A session as he said, “We think our policy stance is right where it should be, for now,” and yet, “it may well be the case that the economy will need more support, from all of us, if the recovery is to be a robust one.”

As the Fed will continue “as needed,” the open-ended program of purchasing Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities will go on as well.

The FOMC statement on Wednesday also pointed out the following:

“The ongoing public health crisis will weigh heavily on economic activity, employment, and inflation in the near term, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term.”

As such, the lending facilities the Fed has implemented across money markets and small businesses, the central bank along with Congress “are deploying these lending powers to an unprecedented extent,” he said.

In an unprecedented use of the Fed’s emergency powers, the Board of governors also announced nine extraordinary lending programs to make funds available to banks, companies, cities, and states.

In reaction to this, stocks rose, Dow jumped 2.6% and S&P 500 3.1% before falling today ahead of unemployment claims.

This is how the revolution begins, not with a bang, but with a brrrrrr pic.twitter.com/z6gbGhSR2l

— Dan Hedl (@danheld) April 29, 2020

Over the past month, stocks went up 30% while Bitcoin is recording over 40% returns. Since yesterday, bitcoin is enjoying a rally which has the leading cryptocurrency surging past $9,000.

Guess it turns out the Fed printing trillions of dollars made #btc do what it was intended to do.

Who would've thought 🤷

— 🍄🌲Benjamin Blunts🌲🍄 (@SmartContracter) April 30, 2020

Year-to-date performance (USD):#Bitcoin: +27.4%
Gold: +13.1%
Nasdaq: +3.2%
Euro: -3%
S&P 500: -8.3%
Oil: -78%

— Alistair Milne (@alistairmilne) April 30, 2020

“YTD, it is outperforming equities by a sizable margin. So proving itself both as a solid risk-on asset (look at today) and as a hedge vs calamity. – we are also positive on the supply/demand impact from the upcoming halving,” said Tom Lee of Fundstart on Bitcoin’s dynamic performance this week.