The crash of the yen in recent days points to massive problems in Japan. With a national debt of over 250% in relation to gross domestic product, it is basically impossible to stabilize the currency through interest rates. The central bank's only option is therefore to sell US government bonds and use the proceeds to exchange dollars for yen.
However, this is likely to meet with open resistance from the Americans. Is the Japanese central bank now trapped? As always, the victims are the consumers, whose purchasing power is being systematically eroded. At the same time, we witnessed the collapse of another American regional bank last night.
The attack by the American authorities on Bitcoin and its self-custody philosophy is also telling. Are we at the beginning of a major banking crisis that will lead to a sovereign debt crisis? Strong nerves are needed now!
Is 1.7% a crash? I guess it doesnt slow anytime soon so can get much worse but calling it a crash at less than 2% feels a bit like some MSM clickbait to me, or am I reading it wrong?
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This is not degen crypto markets. In Forex, any daily move bigger than 1% is considered fairly significant.
Plus, there's a clear trend over the past few weeks.
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Right. That's an enormous move
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I see, because its a sovereign currency. That does make sense, yes. Guess I'm biased from observing bitcoin crashes over the years
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Your posts remind me of Zerohedge. A daily dose of doomerism.
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25 sats \ 3 replies \ @anon 27 Apr
@TomK is SN's town idiot. Satfarmer pur-sang, just knows how to rile up people. Most of his posts lack any depth. Better ignore him like half of the people here do, already.
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aren't you the clown who recently posted some infantile garbage about ethereum and chart analysis?
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 28 Apr
Wow, if even you manage to annoy the TA morons, you really are appealing to the lowest common denominator...
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Why don't You tell us about Your great analysis of Ethereum, Einstein? This was really breathtaking.
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I'm a super optimist by nature. no one could be more optimistic about the clown world than me, believe me.
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Man, l thought they wouldnt collapse so fast... I actually had faith in them.
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Same for me
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It is called the 'Dismal Science's for a reason
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I highly agree with this: "the victims are the consumers, whose purchasing power is being systematically eroded." However I don't think this is a shared sentiment for many people in Japan. First, because there is still a strong industry, and second because of the shrinkflation which has been very effective at hiding the debasement of the currency and the inflation. So I wouldn't call it Zimbabwe yet, or consider it the drama of the year yet. Bottom line I think our biggest problem is what you highlight at the end: "The attack by the American authorities on Bitcoin and its self-custody philosophy is also telling". Coming back to Japan after a trip, I heard the announcement to say that we should declare gold above a given amount (which was small)... The new law for "crypto" exchanges following the US, the capital control for people with multiple currencies, the KYC required to use ATMs to withdraw cash from bitcoins, etc... Bigger than the Japanese Yen rate our biggest challenge I think will be to keep our freedom to transact. Based on that, I started to use Vexl, it's a great app!
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Would you rather choose vexl or robosats?
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I am in a little village on Crete with limited internet access and still cannot open the 'vexl' wepage. But what I read so far on X' it sounds interesting
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I have a personal distaste for mobile apps when it comes to bitcoin finance but I might consider if it broadens the crowd.
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Understandable. But the extreme push of the legacy system toward KYC now is really crazy. And I hear it again: 'it's so easy now with the ETFs' or: I have my 'coins' on Binance.
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It may have changed since then, but last time I looked at robosats the market to transact BTC to JPY or JPY to BTC was not quite there, same for other platforms like Bisq. Furthermore to pay on Internet in many cases it was a hassle without a credit card or without installing a non open-source app to do a bank transfer. So what remained as a choice was cash. And with Vexl you can use it to create your peer to peer network to transact with cash and sell or get bitcoins.
With Vexl also you can ask the identity of someone so you are pretty much free to choose any means of transaction. It could be BTC to gold, BTC to JPY in a cafe or meetup. Vexl favors these kind of physical ways to do exchanges like this and with Vexl this is at your discretion. With robosats I think this is more Internet focused.
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very cool. thanks for the tip, I'll take a look right away
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OMG that's ridiculously high! likely result from buying their own bonds. If I remember correctly
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I don't understand the reluctance of the BOJ this time. They always intervened in the past year or two. Why is this time different?
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I think the US have clearly issued a ban on selling us government bonds. We all know why.
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The US has been exporting inflation and destroying other currencies for years. What leverage do they have?
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I think the US would be ready to wage another trade war to protect their fiat hegemony.
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Waging war makes the economy go around.
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We are already in the midst. The Europeans now joining the club
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Production ramps up, people get behind the war machine.
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but the problem is the disintegration of international trade, which is leading to massive productivity losses. too much capital is being destroyed, and the goods and services that people need are not being produced in sufficient quantities. the damage is very multifaceted, not least at the geopolitical level, where we are now also seeing the world breaking up into two blocs.
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One block always wins though. You think the world will actually take chinas side? No one wants to see that happen, and no one will let it happen.
Geopolitical power. Imagine how fast they could crash the japanese bond market by one or two rate hikes more
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True, but that was the case last year around the time when the regional banks were failing, and I believe the BOJ intervened right in the middle of the mess.
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54 sats \ 1 reply \ @TomK OP 27 Apr
I think if we now add the ECB into the puzzle, that the major central banks are trying to coordinate to get out of this mess. so I think it will go back and forth. but the Americans will of course hold the geopolitical leverage
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They can only hold that postion if they are infallible. Everyones perception of the us dollar is changing.
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Exactly! They do not have jurisdiction. Though knives are slowly turning against US, or maybe just my imagination?
I find it impossible for a nation to fund proxy wars, impose censorship, fund failing banks etc. all while telling Americans that boys can become women and vice versa. The cracks are surely there.
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they can't
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Went to Japan and I loved it but its miracle is coming to an end. While yes they are dealing with yen breaking now that had decades of this fake prosperity with little to no consequences.
Maybe Japan needs to come back to reality. Pay it’s debts and stop living off the printer while USA subsidizes its lifestyle
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Woah, hit the brakes. If you really think the usa is subsidizing its lifestyle, think of what Japan can do to the usa if it cuts them off?
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Japan is an island they would starve without food imports. Read your history about WWII the reason why Japan was so ruthless in Korea and China was because they needed resources.
And of course USA does Japan doesn’t spend trillions on defense. If USA was to leave all their bases today Japan would be of risk of take over just like Taiwan
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Just because it is an island doesnt mean it cant sustain itself. The reason why usa spends so much money there is because it is to their advantage to have a base in asia. Its not charity lol
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Japan has no oil and they need oil. No oil no self sufficiency. It really is that easy.
Yeah but Japan benefits tremendously from USA presence. If they had to defend their own territory it would be a huge economic drain on their limited resources
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Reminds a bit (only a shadow of a bit) of the embargo in ww2
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Some argue the bomb was unnecessary. Many Japanese civilians were starving to death due to the war.
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A hot topic. Like Dresden...
Its easy to look back on history. Actually, Japan has many resourses that it doesnt want to mine. You make it seem like war is happening in Japan all the time. The base in okinawa barely does anything...lol
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No oil
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You seem to be under the impression that oil is scarce. Russia will never stop selling it to whoever wants it. If they really need to, they can just start whaling again to get oil. Lol
The central bank's only option is therefore to sell US government bonds and use the proceeds to exchange dollars for yen.
Until they run out of bonds to sell.
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That's going to be a looong "until". Japan bought an absurd amount of us gov bonds over the last 3 decades.
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Japan is the new Zimbabwe
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It wont get that bad.
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