Visa Proposes Ethereum Payments Solution and the BOJ Changes Policy

Crypto markets found some footing today after yesterday’s sell-off. BTC is up 2.44% and ETH is up 3.62%. This comes as the dollar (DXY) continues to move lower, down 0.70% today. Equity markets are slightly higher – SPX is up 0.29% and NDQ is up 0.12%. Last night, the Bank of Japan surprised markets by changing its yield curve control policy to allow the 10-year Japanese government bond yield to move 50 basis points to either side of its 0% target. Despite the USD moving lower on the news, this decision is set to tighten global monetary conditions further, thus sparking the overnight sell-off in bonds and stocks worldwide. It also caused the Japanese Yen to rally 4.27% versus the U.S. dollar. In addition to tweaking the yield curve control policy, the BOJ has vowed to increase the rate of its 10-year government bond purchases, which can be viewed as ammunition to defend any challenge of the new peg. Japan has notoriously maintained a very loose monetary policy compared to other central banks around the world, thus why most market participants are viewing this as a shocking turn of events.