On the morning of December 15th Asian trading session, the cryptocurrency market suddenly experienced a shock. Bitcoin plummeted from the high of $90,000, dropping to $85,616 intraday, a decline of over 5% for the day. In contrast, the gold market barely moved, only falling by $1.

The strange part of this sharp decline is that—there was no clear bad news. No policy bearish signals, no major project collapses, and on-chain data showed no abnormal selling pressure. So where is the problem? All signs point to Tokyo. The Bank of Japan will hold a monetary policy meeting on December 19th, and the market widely expects them to raise interest rates to the highest level in the past 30 years. Bitcoin’s decline is actually an early "digesting" of this expectation.

This turbulence exposes a reality: Bitcoin is touted as "digital gold," claiming to hedge against inflation and geopolitical risks. But in fact, its sensitivity to global liquidity far exceeds its safe-haven attributes. The Bank of Japan has been implementing negative interest rates since 2016, pumping cheap funds into the market for over 8 years. These funds flowed into stocks, bonds, and also cryptocurrencies. When the central bank’s faucet is about to tighten, these emerging assets are the first to be affected. Japan’s policy shift is just a signal of tightening global liquidity—what this means for risk assets like Bitcoin, the market has already started to speak through prices.