Asset appreciation is exactly the word I was looking for!

Asset inflation has the problem that it's not the asset that is inflating. It's dollar inflation in relation to the asset in question. Asset appreciation is the exact same concept with terminology that cuts straight to the point.

But it isn't the case (asset appreciation as hidden dollar inflation). Assets among practically all classes appreciate, but consumptive commodities don't. So it isn't devaluation of the dollar, but really just appreciation of the assets.

Expansion of M1 alone doesn't make inflation[0]. For inflation to occur one also needs rising wages across the board and thus more demand than supply.

What the US (and to a lesser degree many European countries) experience is the result of decades of stagnant wages means more than half of the population is decoupled from the gains of asset appreciation, but the assets themselves actually behave more or less normal. Have a look at the last 100 years of stock growth, for example: https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-dat...

The asset prices don't really rise (much) faster than in previous decades! The current trend is pretty much identical to the growth between 1980 and 2000.

[0] Otherwise we would see it all the time, because the money supply is theoretically infinite already, without QE, because banks are actually the instutions creating new money via credits they offer. It's just that banks were frightened and stopped giving out credits post 2007/8, which created an illiquidity that QE tried to compensate.