For the past thirty years, the Bank of Japan has acted like a landlord who controls real estate—almost zero interest rates or even negative interest rates, effectively subsidizing borrowers around the world. This cheap money hasn't gone unnoticed: borrowing yen to speculate on Bitcoin, buying the dip in US stocks, hoarding European real estate, everyone feels like a genius investor.

Until recently, the landlord issued a notice: the interest rate will rise to 0.75% starting next month.

The era of selling all assets has arrived. Those who went all in on Bitcoin with 100x leverage back then are now busy closing their positions to cash out. Risk assets are being offloaded in succession, and global funds are starting to flow back to Japan, at an unprecedented scale.

Why is this scarier than directly raising interest rates? Because people are not adjusting their strategies normally, but are being forced to cut losses. The business that borrowed cheap money to renovate the neighboring space now has to smash the furniture to raise money to pay off debts. The crypto market is the first to bear the brunt—those high-leverage positions supported by low-interest yen are collapsing one after another.

This is not just a change in interest rates. It is a rewriting of the global arbitrage game rules. From "the more you borrow, the smarter you are" to "cash is king", the game has completely reversed.

In the next 30 years, such cheap money will no longer be available.