Japan's 'invest locally' plan likely to spur demand for assets like bitcoin (BTC), gold: Crypto Daily

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Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said something early Friday that strengthened the long-term bullish case for perceived store-of-value, limited-supply assets like bitcoin BTC $ 64,316.13 and gold, but not without potential short-term pain.

Katayama said the government is actively steering the $2 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the world’s largest pension fund, to substantially increase its investments in domestic financial assets, including government bonds. Her comments come as concern about Japan’s above 200% public debt-to-GDP ratio has lifted its bond yields to three-decade highs, putting the yen under pressure.

The plan aligns with the government's broader objective to rebalance household financial assets away from cash and deposits and toward stocks, mutual funds, and bonds.

This fits squarely into financial historian Russell Napier’s prediction that debt-laden nations will resort to national capitalism (or state-directed capitalism). That is, the government starts forcing domestic savings institutions to buy its bonds and other local assets to cap yields and keep them below inflation. Essentially, fixed-income returns don’t compensate for inflation.