As a new type of production factor, the digital economy has become a new engine driving rural revitalization. Based on the provincial panel data of the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2011 to 2022, this paper adopts the entropy value method to assess and measure the level of rural revitalization and digital economy development, and systematically reveals the dynamic law of the Yangtze River Economic Belt''s rural revitalization empowered by digital economy development by constructing a two-way fixed effect model, a threshold effect model, and a quantile regression model. The study finds that: the digital economy effectively promotes the rural revitalization of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and this promotion shows an increasing trend of marginal effect, and shows a stronger enabling effect as the quantile increases; the results of the heterogeneity analysis show that the rural revitalization enabling effect of the digital economy in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is more significant than that in the upstream regions; and the positive impact of the digital economy on rural revitalization has a significant threshold effect. Based on this, countermeasures and suggestions for the digital economy empowering rural revitalization in the Yangtze River Economic Belt are proposed from multiple perspectives.