Macro Note: The BoJ holds at 1.25%, but one vote says it is late

At a glance
– The Bank of Japan kept its overnight rate at about 1.25% on 30 Oct in an 8-1 vote. Hajime Takata dissented, proposing 1.5%.
– It more than doubled the pace of sales of its stock ETFs to about 860 billion yen a year from January 2027, and said underlying inflation is now broadly consistent with its 2% target.

What the BoJ decided

The decision came out at about 03:02 UTC (04:02 CET). The statement left the guideline unchanged: the bank will encourage the uncollateralised overnight call rate “to remain at around 1.25 percent”.

The hold matched what 53 economists had expected, TokenPost reported.

The dissent is the interesting part. Takata argued that, with underlying inflation having reached the target, the bank had entered “a new phase” and needed to move its rate faster towards neutral. His proposal was defeated.

The second decision was unanimous.

The bank began selling the stock ETFs it built up over years of stimulus in January 2026, at about 330 billion yen a year at book value. From January 2027 it will sell about 860 billion yen a year, roughly 0.1% of the Tokyo market’s trading value, its decision paper shows. At market prices that is about 2,460 billion yen a year.

At the old pace, the bank put the job at about 112 years. At the new one, about 43.

What the forecasts say

The Policy Board’s median forecasts, from the Outlook Report summary:

The bank says underlying inflation is “generally consistent with” its 2% target and expected to stay around that level. It calls price risks “skewed to the upside”. Growth is weak, and forecast to stay that way.

That sits alongside last week’s Japanese inflation data, and alongside the ECB, which held at 2.5% on Thursday while warning about energy.

My base case: the patient tightener

I will call it the patient tightener.

The BoJ now says, in its own words, that inflation is where it wants it. A central bank that says that, with a rate of 1.25% and prices still rising faster than 2%, is more likely to raise rates again than to cut them. It is choosing to move slowly.

For bitcoin, the channel is the yen. A firmer yen and rising Japanese yields make borrowing yen to buy riskier assets less attractive. Our guide on how bond yields affect bitcoin sets out why that matters.

Today, the yen moved and bitcoin did not. The dollar slipped from 157.57 yen at 02:45 UTC to 157.13 at 03:00 UTC, Yahoo Finance data show, then drifted back to 157.33. The Nikkei 225 was about 2.3% lower in afternoon trading.

On Coinbase, bitcoin went from $77,218 to $77,177 in the 03:00 UTC quarter-hour, then rose to $77,427 in the next. That is noise next to the Binance hack, which set the tone overnight, as this morning’s First Print lays out.

What would change my mind

Two things. First, if the full Outlook Report on Monday 2 Nov leans harder on wages than the summary does, the patient tightener starts to look less patient, and the yen channel would matter more for bitcoin.

Second, a weaker yen. If the dollar pushes back well above 157.65, Thursday’s close, markets are telling the BoJ it is too slow, and Takata’s vote stops looking lonely.

The bottom line: The BoJ held, as expected, but it has now said inflation is at target. That is the sentence that matters for bitcoin’s macro backdrop, even on a day when a hack is doing the talking.

— Alasdair

Data: Bank of Japan statement, Outlook Report summary and ETF decision paper, 30 Oct 2026; Yahoo Finance USD/JPY and Nikkei 225; Coinbase BTC-USD 15-minute candles, 02:45–03:30 UTC. Not financial advice.

Related: Later on Friday, euro area growth came in at 0.4% for the third quarter, double the forecast

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.