Just now! Federal Reserve Chair Powell left a "See you next time"—did he dig a hole or pave the way for $BTC over these eight years?

Buddy, listen to me, the man who has controlled the global faucet for eight years just said “See you next time,” then turned and walked out of the meeting room.

On April 29, 2026, at the end of the Federal Reserve’s routine press conference, Powell dropped a nonchalant yet weighty remark before stepping down from the podium: “Thank you all, see you next time.” On May 15, his chairmanship officially ended, and Kevin Wirth, nominated by Trump, took over. Eight years, two terms, spanning two presidents, a century-long pandemic, and the most severe inflation in the U.S. in forty years.

His record is quite divided: an average monthly unemployment rate of 4.6%, lower than Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen; but an average inflation rate of 3.09% during his tenure, far exceeding the Fed’s 2% target and much higher than previous leaders. He quoted Frank Sinatra saying: there are some regrets, but not many.

This guy is not an economist. He holds a bachelor’s degree in literature from Princeton (1975), a J.D. from Georgetown Law, has worked in investment banking, served as a Treasury official in the George H. W. Bush administration, and later joined Carlyle Group in private equity, with assets between $21.3 million and $72.2 million. When he was nominated, the financial world exploded. Analyst Greg McBride from Bankrate.com bluntly said, “He doesn’t have a Ph.D. in economics but is supposed to guide the world’s largest economy, breaking tradition.” Josh Bivens from the Economic Policy Institute called for keeping Yellen, and some warned based on the short-lived tenure of “the last non-economist chair,” G. William Miller, who served only 17 months. But Aaron Klein from the Brookings Institution believed practical experience could break “groupthink”: “There’s no secret exclusive to Ph.D. economists; different backgrounds can be an advantage—provided he knows when to set aside models and rely on intuition.”

When he took over in February 2018, the situation looked good—inflation at 1.5%, unemployment at 4.1%, stock markets hitting new highs, and tax reform stimulating growth. But trouble was already brewing. Veteran observer David Wessel pointed out that Yellen left a lot of tough problems: how to raise interest rates? How to evaluate the impact of tax cuts? How to use unconventional tools in the next recession? Critics said Yellen’s easing had lasted too long, with U.S. stock valuations reaching levels only seen three times in a century, and systemic underestimation of credit risks. More troubling was political strife: five months into his term, Trump was already criticizing him on CNBC, and Powell chose to ignore it. In fall 2018, his remark “There’s a long way to go” triggered market panic, and in December, his statement that balance sheet reduction was “on autopilot” caused alarm, with Trump even considering firing him. Powell then realized: every word from the Fed chair can shake the markets.

Spring 2020 was the real test. The pandemic caused U.S. unemployment to soar to 14.8%, a record since 1948. Powell responded swiftly: emergency rate cuts to zero, buying trillions of dollars in bonds within weeks, and teaming up with the Treasury to launch credit tools far beyond traditional boundaries. He later admitted: “We crossed many red lines… we did it first, then figured out how to fix it.” The gamble paid off; the U.S. avoided a repeat of the Great Depression, with employment recovering in two years—six years for 2008. Powell earned praise, seen as a bold, Volcker-like figure. But the phrase “figure out how to fix it” planted the seeds for later problems.

Starting in 2021, massive fiscal stimulus met slow supply chain recovery, plus the Russia-Ukraine war pushed energy prices higher, leading to runaway inflation. At the August 2021 Jackson Hole symposium, Powell made a decision he would regret for life: calling inflation “transitory.” As a result, core CPI surged to 6.4% in February 2022, and the overall CPI skyrocketed to 9.1% in June. During congressional hearings, he admitted misjudging the situation, saying “we should have acted sooner.” The correction was fierce: in March 2022, he began raising rates, and within less than two years, increased them by over 500 basis points at an unprecedented pace. This time, his ideological idol shifted from Keynes to Volcker, and in Jackson Hole 2022, he declared “maintaining price stability at all costs.” Critics called it a late shift, as millions of families saw their purchasing power shrink; supporters argued it was mainly due to pandemic and geopolitical shocks. The most remarkable thing was that such aggressive rate hikes did not trigger a recession. By the end of 2024, the economy was growing at 2.5%, inflation had fallen back, and the labor market was near full employment—what Powell called his proudest achievement, the “soft landing.”

His ultimate legacy may not be in the economic data but in whether he preserved the Fed’s independence. Trump’s first term criticized him for not cutting rates; after returning to the White House in 2025, conflicts intensified— the Justice Department launched criminal investigations over the cost overruns in the Fed headquarters renovation, nearly the first in the Fed’s 112-year history. Analysts believe the real motive was to pressure him into cutting rates to serve political agendas. In January 2026, Powell responded with a video statement: it was “the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on what’s best for the public, not kowtowing to the president’s preferences.” The video circulated widely, gaining bipartisan support in Congress, allowing him to bow out on his own terms. The last chair under such pressure was Nixon, who pressured Burns into loosening monetary policy, ultimately causing runaway inflation. Powell withstood it, and his place in history is far higher than that of his predecessor who capitulated.

Full employment is another part of his legacy. During his tenure, the average monthly unemployment rate was 4.6%, the bottom 10% of workers saw their real wages increase by 15.3%, and in 2023, Black unemployment dropped to 4.8%, a record low. Researcher Dean Baker wrote that he diligently pursued full employment, enabling millions of workers who might have lost jobs to keep theirs, and millions more to see wage increases they wouldn’t have otherwise. Critics also have their reasons: the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank collapse exposed lax regulation, and Baker bluntly said “he had serious regulatory failures”; the average inflation rate of 3.09% was well above the 2% target; and at the end of his term, the balance sheet had doubled to $6.7 trillion, with his successor Wirth listing it as a top priority for reform.

He summarized his job in one sentence: “We are building a dam, not preventing a hurricane.” Not that he foresaw everything, nor that he was mistake-free, but that in the most turbulent times, he tried to make this institution strong enough so that political storms, pandemic floods, and inflation torrents wouldn’t completely destroy it.

Now, the faucet needs to be replaced. How will Kevin Wirth turn the knob? For $BTC and $ETH, the underlying variables—liquidity environment, regulatory stance, dollar strength—are all being re-priced. The end of Powell’s era is not a period but a question mark. Are you ready to face the next eight years of turbulence?