Tokyo decision-makers stayed up all night. What they are waiting for is not just the rate announcement, but the end of the thirty-year era of cheap money.

In the trading community, the atmosphere is unusually tense. A chart of yen arbitrage unwind paths is circulating—$3.4 trillion in arbitrage positions are approaching a critical point. As soon as the Bank of Japan tightens the liquidity tap, borrowing cheap yen to chase high-yield hot money globally, they must immediately reverse and exchange yen to fill the positions.

There are precedents in history. After Japan raised interest rates in 2000, the dot-com bubble burst; after the tightening began in 2006, the subprime mortgage crisis fully erupted. Will the script repeat itself?

When financing costs suddenly surge, a sell-off is inevitable. The crypto market, as an asset class deeply tied to global liquidity, is the first to be affected. This is not minor turbulence but a stress test.

Deeper issues lie beneath the surface. Experienced traders know that yen arbitrage is just a surface phenomenon. Fundamentally, the global debt order has become rotten—according to the International Financial Statistics, global debt has approached a record high of $338 trillion. When this foundation begins to shake, how quickly will the transmission chain from finance to crypto unfold? No one can give a definitive answer.