Japan's 2-Year Yield Hits 31-Year High as Yen Carry Trade Costs Rise
Bitcoin (BTC)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
cryptocurrency.com.tr reports that Japan's two-year government bond yield reached 1.746% on Monday, marking a 31-year high. This increase raises the cost of the yen carry trade, a strategy that has historically funded global risk assets like Bitcoin (BTC). Swap markets currently price in an 88% probability of a Bank of Japan (BOJ) rate hike in September.
The BOJ raised its policy rate to 1% in June, the highest level since 1995, causing longer maturities to follow. The 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) yield is now near 2.93%. Despite higher rates typically supporting a currency, the yen weakened, trading at 160.16 per dollar on Friday.
Tokyo deployed 15.4 trillion yen, approximately $97 billion, between July 30 and August 26. This included a rare joint intervention with the United States on July 31. However, the currency has already surrendered more than half of those intervention gains.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for BTC, measured when this story was written up on 31 August 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Bitcoin is trading at $77,682.00 with a 1-hour buy ratio of 56.3% and a 4-hour buy ratio of 52.0%. These short-term figures indicate active buying pressure, contrasting with the 24-hour buy ratio of 47.5%. The 1-hour volume delta is positive at +$11,130,195, while the 4-hour delta is +$13,649,236. Over the full day, the volume delta is negative at -$35,640,805, suggesting that selling pressure has outweighed buying over the longer timeframe. The cumulative volume delta (CVD) for the 24-hour close is +$10,121,859. Net buying occurred for 11 of the 24 hours, with a total spot volume of $712,506,540 across 2,404,922 trades.
The latest daily buy ratio of 46.7% sits at the 18th percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 49.2% - weaker buying than most days.
Twenty-four hours later
What BTC did over the 23 hours after the story broke. The market moves for its own reasons; this is what happened, not what the story caused.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for BTC, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the average buy ratio was 49.7%, making the current 24-hour ratio of 47.5% slightly lower by 2.2 points. Volume over the last day is at 0.50x the weekly average, indicating significantly reduced trading activity compared to recent norms. Net buying was recorded for only 3 of the 7 days in the past week. The price change over eight days is -0.1%, with a total volume delta of -$122,847,700. This suggests a period of relative stability with modest outflows rather than a dramatic shift in market sentiment.