Recently, there has been a strange phenomenon in the market—the Bank of Japan historically raised interest rates from -0.1% to 0.75%, the first time in thirty years, completely shutting the door on global yen arbitrage. Theoretically, this should trigger a wave of selling, especially in risk assets like Bitcoin. But what happened? Nothing at all, instead, it remained extremely stable.

Behind this, there are actually two powerful forces silently opposing each other.

On one side, the appreciation of the yen is causing a "global drain." Large institutions relying on borrowing yen for global arbitrage suddenly face skyrocketing costs and are forced to withdraw funds from the US stock and crypto markets to flow back to Japan. This kind of drain has historically been fierce, with single-day drops of 20%-30%.

On the other side, the US printing presses are running at full throttle. Giants like BlackRock are rapidly absorbing liquidity through spot Bitcoin ETFs, and traditional financial giants like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are also beginning to allocate large-scale crypto assets. By 2025, institutions have become the absolute backbone of the crypto market, and their continuous dollar buying is offsetting or even surpassing the effects of yen drain.

So, what you see as sideways movement is essentially a contest between two top global capitals. The calmer the price, the more balanced the forces are. This is not the calm before a storm; it’s the dead silence of the eye of the storm—true direction will erupt in a more ferocious manner once one side gains overwhelming dominance. The market is no longer a playground for retail sentiment; it’s now a sophisticated game of institutions based on global liquidity.