The last cheap capital pool in the world is disappearing, and the capital map is being silently redrawn.

December 19th is a crucial day - the Bank of Japan unanimously passed an interest rate hike (9:0), raising the policy rate from 0.5% to 0.75%, the highest level since 1995. Thus, the era of thirty years of ultra-loose monetary policy has come to an end.

But the next reaction is quite interesting. The market did not collapse; instead, it rose. The Nikkei index went up, and Bitcoin quickly rebounded after briefly dipping to $84,000, breaking through $88,000 again. Beneath this calm surface, there is actually an implication of the logic behind the global capital reallocation — this is not a crisis; rather, it feels like a turning point.

**Why is this happening? The key lies in the fact that expectations have already been fully digested.**

This interest rate hike was completely expected. Before the decision, the market predicted the probability of a rate increase to be as high as 80%-90%, with some data even showing it at 98%. Such a high consensus gave everyone enough time to prepare in advance.

In contrast to the "unexpected" interest rate hike by the Bank of Japan in July 2024, when Bitcoin plummeted 23% in a week, the impact this time is completely different— the drop occurred on December 15th before the decision, with a single-day drop of over 5% (, but when the announcement was made, the price actually started to rebound.

This is a typical "buy the expectation, sell the news" market. What the market truly fears is not the bad news itself, but rather the inexplicable uncertainty. Once the dust settles, it actually becomes a signal for an upward trend.