The Bank of Japan (BOJ) raised its interest rate to 1.25% on Friday, the highest level since 1995, as energy costs from the war in Iran pressure economies.

The board split 7-2 on the decision, with members Toichiro Asada and Ayano Sato dissenting. Markets had priced in the move almost entirely before the meeting ended.

Three Central Banks, One Energy Shock

The hike arrives in a busy week for rate decisions this year. On Wednesday, the Fed lifted its target range to 3.75%-4.00% in a unanimous vote, marking its first increase since 2023.

The ECB moved a week earlier, raising all three key rates by 25 basis points and taking its deposit rate to 2.50%.

Even after Friday’s increase, Japan still sits well below both peers. The move is the BOJ’s sixth increase of the current cycle. The policy rate was -0.1% when tightening began in March 2024.

The common driver is fuel. Japan imported 94% of its crude oil from the Middle East in 2025. Most of it passes through the Strait of Hormuz. 

The war in Iran has disrupted those shipments and lifted prices this year. Japan’s headline inflation stood at 1.9% in August, while core inflation eased to 1.7% from 1.8%.

“As for the future conduct of monetary policy, given that underlying CPI inflation has been approaching 2 percent and financial conditions have been accommodative, the Bank will continue to raise the policy interest rate and adjust the degree of monetary accommodation, in response to developments in economic activity and prices as well as financial conditions,” the statement read.

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The UK Sits This One Out

Britain went the other way. The Bank of England held its rate at 3.75%, a sixth straight hold, with three of nine policymakers pushing for 4%.

“So far, higher global energy costs have had a limited effect on price and wage setting in the U.K,” said Bank Governor Andrew Bailey.

BeInCrypto reported that UK inflation hit a five-month high of 3.1% in August. Still, the yen adds pressure Britain does not face. Tokyo and Washington intervened jointly in August after the currency sank to a 40-year low.

That was their first coordinated action since 2011. Reuters-polled economists expect interest rates to rise to 1.5% by the end of March 2027, then 1.75% in the second quarter.

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The post Bank of Japan Follows Fed and ECB With Rate Hike to 1.25% appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Ripple’s cross-border token was at the forefront of gains toward the end of August when its price reached $1.70. Since then, though, bears have regained control, and it has experienced a substantial pullback.

The CLARITY Act’s failure only worsened XRP’s position, driving it down to roughly $1.26. It has regained some ground and now trades around $1.30, but it is still down about 6% on a weekly basis. One popular analyst remains unfazed by the recent weakness, suggesting it may present an attractive buying opportunity. Here’s why.

First Time in History

X user Cryptollica disclosed that XRP’s two-week RSI ratio has dropped to around 33.5, the lowest point in its history and lower than in 2018, during the 2020 COVID pandemic, and in the 2022 bear market.

“That is the part the market is misreading. Sentiment has been destroyed, momentum has been washed out to a historical extreme, and the asset is being treated as if the story is already over. But this is exactly where asymmetry becomes interesting. Market has already delivered the pain while the long term structire is still active,” the analyst said.

Cryptollica maintained that everyone wants certainty after the move becomes obvious; investors find XRP attractive after the breakout, and almost nobody is interested when the chart “looks broken.”

Dropping to this level is indeed interpreted as a bullish sign. It indicates that Ripple’s native token has entered oversold territory like never before, which could precede a strong recovery.

The institutional appetite is another positive signal. Last week, spot XRP ETFs smashed another all-time high after cumulative total net inflows surpassed $1.7 billion. Despite the choppy price performance, these investment vehicles continue to attract capital, and September 2 was the only red day in the past month and a half.

Additional Forecasts

XRP started the current business week on the right foot, rising above $1.40. Ali Martinez noted the resurgence, forecasting that a sustained close above $1.38 could confirm the bullish move and open the door to a rally toward $1.60. In fact, the price continued pumping to nearly $1.50 but then headed south and could not reach the analyst’s target.

STEPH IS CRYPTO and Crypto Bitlord also made interesting predictions. The former spotted a “cup and handle” pattern on XRP’s price chart and projected a potential jump to $2.50, while the latter said they are 99% sure a push toward $2 is coming next.

The post Ripple (XRP) Prints an Extremely Bullish Signal: Is This the Perfect Buying Opportunity? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Grayscale says the Federal Reserve’s latest rate hike will not drive major changes in crypto markets. Nor would a second increase this year.

Head of Research Zach Pandl published the note on Thursday. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) had raised its target range to 3.75%-4.00% a day earlier.

Why 1997 Matters More Than 2022

Pandl drew a line between two very different Fed moves. The central bank began a cyclical shift in March 2022 to contain inflation.

It raised rates by 550 basis points by July 2023. That lifted the opportunity cost of holding Bitcoin (BTC) and similar non-interest-bearing assets.

Wednesday’s quarter-point move carries no such weight, he argues. Traders sided with Pandl this week, and Bitcoin climbed instead of selling off.

His reference point is March 1997, when Alan Greenspan’s Fed delivered a one-off hike. The Nasdaq bull market kept running.

“We believe yesterday’s move was a mid-cycle adjustment, not a cyclical change. And we doubt the one or two rate hikes expected for 2026 will lead to much change in capital allocation,” Pandl wrote.

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Pandl does see uneven effects inside crypto. Stablecoin issuers such as Circle and Tether collect more revenue when cash rates rise. Higher yields on tokenized bonds and money market funds could also pull capital onchain.

“Crypto is diverse, and higher rates affect certain assets differently than others, just like in traditional finance,” he added.

Traders Put 88% Odds on Another Hike by December

Meanwhile, traders assign 54.2% odds to another increase at the October 28 meeting, according to CME FedWatch data.

By the December 9 meeting, traders see an 88.2% chance that the range sits higher than today. A further 40.3% put it at 4.25%-4.50%, or 50 basis points above the current level.

Policymakers are close behind. Projections show 16 of 18 officials expect at least one more increase in 2026.

Pandl’s framing faces its real test if the Fed moves again in December. That decision would show whether crypto reads this cycle as a blip or a turn.

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The post Grayscale Rules Out Major Crypto Shifts From a Second 2026 Hike appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said in a note this week that Bitcoin (BTC) could draw more price support than gold if hedging demand in the ETF market eases, with short interest in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) sitting near its highest level of the year.

IBIT’s put-to-call open interest ratio runs above that of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), which the analysts read as heavier hedging around Bitcoin, while short interest in GLD sits below its historical average.

Bitcoin Vs. Gold

Bitcoin still faces a more skeptical positioning backdrop than gold despite recent inflows and a build-up of futures positioning, the note said. Moreover, figures reported by FINRA and compiled by MarketBeat put IBIT’s short base at 45.9 million shares as of the August 31 settlement date, the highest reading of 2026 and up 23.8% from 37.1 million two weeks earlier.

The position equals 3.53% of the float and would take 0.6 days of the fund’s average trading volume, about 53 million shares, to cover. At the end of March, the short base stood near 13 million shares, the year’s low.

Bitcoin and gold funds both drew inflows after the Federal Reserve’s late-July meeting, when the debasement trade returned, according to the note. That’s part of the reason behind the rally that carried Bitcoin toward $80,000 and gold near $4,600 an ounce as investors rotated into scarce assets on US fiscal concerns.

However, momentum faded over the past week as inflation-adjusted bond yields rose and the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act in a procedural vote that fell short of the 60 votes needed, the analysts wrote. Gold ETFs have recovered all of their outflows from earlier this year, the note said, while Bitcoin funds have recaptured about half.

Panigirtzoglou’s team has run the Bitcoin-gold comparison before. In February, with crypto assets under pressure, the analysts put a volatility-adjusted comparison to gold at $266,000 per Bitcoin, in their words, “an unrealistic target for this year” but one that “shows the upside potential over the long term once negative sentiment is reversed.”

Bitcoin traded near $76,500 on Thursday, little changed over the past 24 hours, per CoinGecko data.

ETF Flows Swinging Hard

Moreover, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have swung hard this month, posting $236 million in outflows on September 1 before taking in $731 million on September 3, their strongest day since January, with IBIT alone accounting for roughly $454 million.

Net assets across the funds stood at $103.3 billion in early September, about 6% of Bitcoin’s market capitalization, per SoSoValue data.

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“Corporate treasuries were a big buyer through 2025, and they have stepped back,” Glassnode said. “Their average entry, the Corporate Treasury Cost Basis, sits at $80.5K, about 6% above spot, so the group as a whole is under water.”

Bitcoin topped that level recently but failed to keep gains.

Data source Bitcoin Treasuries now puts public-company holdings at about 1.22 million BTC across 181 listed firms. Strategy remains the dominant buyer and holder, with about 845,050 BTC. Tokyo-listed Metaplanet is among the next-largest corporate stacks. As a group, those treasuries are still underwater at current prices.

“A reclaim of $80.5K would put the treasuries back in profit and remove one layer of overhead supply; until then their entry is one more ceiling,” Glassnode added.

Other demand indicators paint a mixed picture

U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs have attracted billions of dollars since early August, signaling a rebound in institutional demand for the cryptocurrency. However, they remain roughly $1 billion short of turning positive on a year-to-date basis, according to data source SoSoValue.

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The Coinbase premium indicator has remained mostly negative since May, aside from a brief move into positive territory on Sept. 5, according to data from CoinGlass. A negative reading means bitcoin is trading at a discount on Coinbase relative to prices on offshore exchange Binance, suggesting that U.S. buyers are showing weaker demand than traders elsewhere.

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