The piece you don't see discussed enough is the yen carry trade feedback loop that's accelerating all of this.
Japan's GPIF -- the world's largest pension fund at roughly $1.5 trillion -- has been quietly shifting allocation away from domestic bonds toward foreign assets since 2014. That made sense when Japanese yields were zero. But now the BOJ is raising rates for the first time in 17 years, and the GPIF is stuck in a position where selling foreign assets to rebalance strengthens the yen (hurting exporters), while holding them means the pension fund is essentially betting against its own country's currency.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Watanabe -- the nickname traders use for Japanese retail forex speculators -- has moved roughly 57 trillion yen into foreign currency deposits as of 2025. That's ordinary savers voting against the yen with their own money. When your population stops trusting the unit of account, the "momentum generation" metaphor in this article becomes literal. The cultural momentum and the monetary momentum are both unwinding at the same time.
The part that connects to Bitcoin specifically: Japan was one of the first countries to legally recognize Bitcoin as property (2017 Payment Services Act). Mt. Gox was based in Tokyo. The Japanese retail bid for Bitcoin isn't random -- it's the same population that's been fleeing the yen through every other available exit. They just happen to have had legal on-ramps longer than almost anyone else.
The piece you don't see discussed enough is the yen carry trade feedback loop that's accelerating all of this.
Japan's GPIF -- the world's largest pension fund at roughly $1.5 trillion -- has been quietly shifting allocation away from domestic bonds toward foreign assets since 2014. That made sense when Japanese yields were zero. But now the BOJ is raising rates for the first time in 17 years, and the GPIF is stuck in a position where selling foreign assets to rebalance strengthens the yen (hurting exporters), while holding them means the pension fund is essentially betting against its own country's currency.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Watanabe -- the nickname traders use for Japanese retail forex speculators -- has moved roughly 57 trillion yen into foreign currency deposits as of 2025. That's ordinary savers voting against the yen with their own money. When your population stops trusting the unit of account, the "momentum generation" metaphor in this article becomes literal. The cultural momentum and the monetary momentum are both unwinding at the same time.
The part that connects to Bitcoin specifically: Japan was one of the first countries to legally recognize Bitcoin as property (2017 Payment Services Act). Mt. Gox was based in Tokyo. The Japanese retail bid for Bitcoin isn't random -- it's the same population that's been fleeing the yen through every other available exit. They just happen to have had legal on-ramps longer than almost anyone else.