The price of bitcoin has benefited from macroeconomic uncertainty this year, rising more than 50% over the last six months as China devalued the yuan and the UK dramatically exited the European Union.
As the calendar rolls ahead to August, and excitement over these price drivers fades , market observers are beginning to wonder if further global events will benefit the digital currency’s markets in 2016.
Against this backdrop, a Bank of Japan (BOJ) meeting approaching later this week has many digital currency market observers wondering how any new easing announced by the central bank could come to impact the price of bitcoin.
If the central bank uses additional stimulus, this move could place downward pressure on the yen’s buying power, motivating market participants to flee the currency and purchase safe haven assets like bitcoin instead. Of course, the perception that this event could occur may be just as powerful given that the bitcoin price is often driven by speculation, in both senses of the word.
A majority of economists participating in a recent Reuters poll – as well as the most respondents in a survey conducted by Citi – indicated their expectation is that further easing will come from the BOJ’s meeting, to be held on 28th and 29th July.
CoinDesk received similar responses when speaking with economists.
For example Usha Haley, professor of International Business at West Virginia University, stated that the market is still expecting "some form of easing" at the BOJ’s policy meeting next week, even if the extent of this stimulus is not clear. Fiscal policy
Regardless of what methods of easing the central bank decides to use, more than one market expert emphasized the key importance of fiscal policy."Market expectations are such that the BOJ has to do something ‘big’ or they will risk disappointing the market,” said Jack […]
