#加密市场小幅下跌 The Bank of Japan's 3 votes to oust, BTC falls below 77,000
BTC falls below 77,000, with the total market capitalization at $2.56 trillion, fear and greed index at 41, neutral leaning bearish. Today's decline is not caused by a single reason but by several events stacking together.
1 The Bank of Japan's three votes to oust, June rate hike expectations have entered the market
The Bank of Japan finished its policy meeting today, announcing to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged, remaining at 0.75%. The voting result was 6 to 3, with three members voting for an immediate rate hike. This split is the largest internal division since Governor Ueda took office. Meanwhile, the central bank also raised its core inflation forecast for this fiscal year to 2.8%. On the surface, nothing changed, but internally, disagreements are brewing, and the market interprets this as a signal of a rate hike. The yen immediately appreciated, and the BTC/JPY exchange rate dropped about 0.6%, dragging BTC spot prices downward as well.
Why does a rate hike by the Bank of Japan affect BTC?
Because the scale of yen interest rate arbitrage is large. Over the past few years, many institutions and funds have borrowed low-interest yen, exchanged it for dollars, and then invested in various assets, including cryptocurrencies. Once the market believes Japan will hike rates, this chain begins to reverse: the yen appreciates, borrowed money needs to be repaid, and risk assets are sold off first. In August last year, the yen suddenly surged, and BTC plummeted nearly 10% within hours. The current situation is similar. The interest rate derivatives market is currently pricing in a 74% probability of a Japanese rate hike in June. That means there’s still a stress test coming in the next two months.
2 ETF has won 9 consecutive days, today outflows of $263 million led by Fidelity
Last week, I kept talking about Bitcoin ETF’s nine consecutive days of net inflows, but today the streak abruptly ended. On April 27, the US Bitcoin spot ETF experienced a net outflow of $263 million, ending the nine-day inflow streak. The largest outflow was from Fidelity’s FBTC, with $150 million out in a single day, the biggest among all ETFs. GBTC followed closely, with outflows of $46.6 million. Of course, ETF outflows do not directly equate to institutional withdrawal; some are normal arbitrage liquidations, and some are hedging: in the past few days, BTC has fluctuated between 77,000 and 79,000, unable to break through 80,000 for a long time. Institutions holding positions in this range are starting to hedge with options or ETFs. But regardless of the reason, the current situation is: nine days of billion-dollar inflows followed by $263 million outflows in a day. This may indicate that before breaking through 80,000, the short-term momentum has reached its limit.
3 DeFi stolen $300 million, then industry raised $300 million to cover
On April 18, Kelp DAO’s cross-chain bridge suffered a serious vulnerability. Attackers exploited the bridge’s validation server, illegally minting 116,500 rsETH on the Ethereum side, tokens with no real backing assets, created out of thin air. The attacker then used these "fake" rsETH as collateral on Aave and Compound to borrow real assets. The total actual loss from this incident is approximately $292 million, with affected user assets locked up, and multiple markets on Aave and Compound were urgently frozen. This is one of the largest cross-chain bridge incidents in DeFi history. Then something interesting happened: a group of major DeFi protocols spontaneously formed a rescue alliance called "DeFi United"—including Aave Labs, Lido, EtherFi, Ethena, Mantle, and others—raising over $300 million in aid funds. Meanwhile, Aave Labs and Kelp DAO jointly submitted a governance proposal to Arbitrum DAO to release the previously frozen $71 million (about 30,766 ETH), which was originally frozen from the attacker’s address, now intended to be redirected for user compensation. Essentially, the entire industry pooled $300 million to patch this hole. This highlights DeFi’s fragility: cross-chain bridges are the most vulnerable part of the ecosystem because they require trust between two chains, and any flaw in validation logic opens attack surfaces. Kelp DAO is not the first, nor will it be the last. On the other hand, it shows DeFi’s self-rescue capability. The "DeFi United" effort indicates that top protocols have developed some informal mutual guarantee awareness. Aave was one of the victims but did not turn away; instead, it led the rescue team. Such "industry mutual aid" is the first time seen on such a large scale in DeFi.
4 DOJ officially states: writing code is not a crime
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche today issued a statement, officially confirming a shift in enforcement stance: cryptocurrency developers will no longer be prosecuted or investigated simply because third parties use their code for crimes, unless the developers themselves are "knowingly complicit" and actively assist third parties in committing crimes. For example, if you write a mixer or a privacy protocol, regulators previously could label you as "aiding money laundering." Today, the DOJ explicitly says this approach is no longer valid. Code is code, tools are tools, and only those who use tools for crime are targets; developers of the tools are not. Roman Storm, the developer of Tornado Cash, was prosecuted by U.S. prosecutors for writing this Ethereum privacy protocol, but the case remains unresolved. Keonne Rodriguez, the developer of Samourai Wallet, also faced similar charges. The existence of these cases has caused anxiety among open-source crypto developers worldwide, with many moving projects overseas or halting development altogether. Today’s statement from the DOJ means: our thinking has changed. This is an internal policy statement from the Department of Justice; a future administration could revert it at any time, but it is the clearest signal of goodwill that crypto developers have received in recent years. The core logic of the crypto industry is that open-source code and permissionless building are the foundations of continuous innovation. If developers face criminal risks for writing open-source code, smart people will choose not to do it. This damage to the ecosystem is deeper than any price decline.
BTC around 77,000, not crashing, but also no reason to rebound immediately. Waiting to see what the Bank of Japan does next.
