The Bank of Japan announced the end of the negative interest rate era and raised the policy rate to 0.1%, causing turbulence in the global financial markets. Public opinion quickly labeled it: rate hike → liquidity tightening → risk assets under pressure → Bitcoin plunges. The logic sounds perfect, retail investors cut their losses one after another, and it seems a bloodbath has become inevitable.

But if you only stay at this level of understanding, you might have stepped into a carefully laid trap—a "stress test" aimed at reshuffling chip distribution and cleansing floating capital. The seemingly simple cause-and-effect hides a far more complex and brutal multi-layered game.

**Markets have already digested expectations; the decline is just an illusion**

The most ironclad rule in financial games is "speculate on expectations, sell when realized." Is a rate hike by the Japanese yen some sudden black swan? No, it’s "old news" that has been repeatedly discussed and digested by the market for weeks or even months. The smart money started adjusting positions long before the decision was announced. When the rate hike dust settles, Bitcoin continues to slide—this isn’t the market "reacting to news," but rather all expectations have been realized, leaving only panic selling—plus, the final test and harvest of market sentiment by the main players.

**The truth behind volume-depleted declines: igniting panic with minimal chips**

This kind of decline often exhibits a characteristic: extremely low trading volume. What does this indicate? It means that the truly steadfast holders have long remained unmoved, and the floating chips in the market are already scarce. At this point, the main players don’t need to dump large amounts; they only need to投入有限的"筹码A" to ignite the downward fuse, then leverage algorithmic trading and collective retail panic to easily trigger a "kill the bull and kill the bear" stampede.

Retail investors, in panic, follow the trend and sell off "chips B" and "chips C," causing the price to sink deeper amid mutual trampling. But the instigator of all this, who triggered everything, has long since quietly accumulated these cheap chips at the low. The entire process isn’t about the market maker’s wealth shrinking; it’s a precise slaughter targeting unsteady holders. What’s the final outcome? The market maker’s chips actually increase, while retail positions dissolve in anxiety. The decline is thus a cold and ruthless redistribution of market wealth.