Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently did something rare—he directly linked the criminal investigation against him to the refusal to cut interest rates. Once this statement was made, it immediately sparked concerns about the independence of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The full story is as follows. A federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. is investigating Powell, ostensibly over the renovation of the Federal Reserve headquarters—questioning whether he made false statements to Congress regarding the project's scope. It sounds very technical, but Powell himself offered a completely different interpretation.

In his statement, he was frank: "This investigation is essentially the cost of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on the most beneficial assessment for the public, rather than complying with the President's preferences." In other words, I am being investigated because I did not cut interest rates according to President Trump’s wishes.

The deeper issue behind this is whether the Federal Reserve can continue to formulate monetary policy based on economic data and evidence, or if policy will be influenced by political pressure and threats. This is not just a personal issue for Powell, but a matter of the entire central bank system’s independence.

From the perspective of the cryptocurrency market, the consequences of the breakdown of central bank independence are severe. Once monetary policy is hijacked by political factors, market expectations will become disordered, and volatility will spike. Investors will be unable to judge based on economic fundamentals and will have to guess the direction of political power struggles—this would be catastrophic for any asset class.

Powell once said, "Unless I die, I will never resign early," and now those words sound both like a promise and a warning. Regardless, this clash of power and independence is rewriting the rules of the U.S. financial system.