According to CoinMeta, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it would increase the maximum scale of its liquidity-backed repurchase operations from at least $2 billion to at least $4 billion. This move immediately supported long-term Treasury yields and drove up the prices of precious metals, while causing the dollar to weaken. Although this measure is not equivalent to quantitative easing, its market impact is somewhat similar to that of alleviating the tightening of financial conditions. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's July meeting show that internal debates were more hawkish; although most participants favored keeping interest rates unchanged, several others favored raising rates, believing that if inflation did not decline, it might be necessary to raise them.