The latest Reuters survey on June 3 subtly rewrote the narrative of global liquidity: among the 80 economists surveyed, 49 expect the European Central Bank to raise interest rates twice in 2026, compared to just 34 out of 70 who provided this answer a month ago to the same question; at the same time, among 42 respondents, 28 believe that the risk of stagflation in the Eurozone is high this year—an economic slowdown combined with high inflation means that the ECB is reluctant to significantly ease and finds it difficult to actually turn dovish. Almost simultaneously, Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda stated in his last routine speech before the policy meeting that if the baseline scenario is more likely to be realized, the Bank will continue to raise policy rates at a “suitable pace” to achieve the 2% inflation target, and emphasized that future rate hikes will depend on whether the economy and prices can evolve as predicted by the central bank, while weighing upside and downside risks. One is the ECB, which has long been seen as a "showroom" of negative interest rates and unconventional easing, the other is the BOJ, which has made the yen a low-interest funding currency for many years. Today, however, the market interprets both as forming a turning point from extremely low rates to synchronized tightening. For global assets, this is not just a technical expectation adjustment for two regions, but an overall rise in the risk-free return and asset discount rate curve—if both Europe and Japan, which have been viewed as important "liquidity valves" over the past decade, no longer provide cheap funding for high-risk assets, stock markets, credit assets, as well as liquidity-sensitive crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, will all face a systematic repricing regarding risk appetite and valuation framework.

ECB's Shift from Inaction to Expectation of Two Rate Hikes

The signals from the Reuters June survey are already significantly different: among the 80 economists surveyed, 49 expect the European Central Bank to raise interest rates twice in 2026, markedly up from the May survey where "only 34 out of 70 bet on two rate hikes." Two rate hikes are no longer a minority tail view but are approaching a new consensus, which means the market's old script of "the ECB remaining inactive and slowly normalizing in the long term" is quietly being taken off the shelf—the tightening path itself is being repriced, and the anchor points of interest rate futures and the long-end yield curve are moving from "low-level sideways" to "moderately rising."

Driving this shift in expectation is the reevaluation of stagflation risks in the Eurozone. In the same round of June surveys, 28 out of 42 economists believe that this year's stagflation risk in the Eurozone is high. The combination of slowing growth and still high inflation objectively compresses the space for further easing. In a stagflation environment, central banks are often forced to prioritize combating inflation, even at the expense of some growth, thereby maintaining or even raising real interest rate expectations; as a key component of global risk-free returns and cross-asset discount rates, once the ECB policy rate moves to a higher platform, it will not only raise the relative return rates of euro assets (especially bonds and money market instruments), guiding global funds to tilt towards "higher interest, safer" assets, but will also compress the valuation space of the stock market and high-beta assets (including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other liquidity-sensitive assets) by raising the discount rate. This means the ECB's shift from "inaction" to the expectation of "two rate hikes" is becoming one of the key macro variables in repricing global risk assets and the risk appetite of the crypto market.

Ueda's Hawkish Stance: Japan Says Goodbye to Zero Interest Rate Cushion

As expectations for "zero to two rate hikes" rise in Europe, Japan’s signals are likewise a farewell to the old world. In his last public speech before the policy meeting, Kazuo Ueda clearly stated that once the central bank judges that the baseline scenario is more likely to be realized, it will continue to raise policy rates at "a suitable pace" to achieve the 2% inflation target; the pace of rate hikes will depend on whether the economy and prices can evolve as predicted by the central bank, weighing the up and down risks. In other words, Japan no longer views extremely low interest rates as a safety net to rely on indefinitely, but instead closely ties its policy trajectory with inflation targets and risk balance. Rising geopolitical turmoil and imported inflation only make it increasingly difficult to justify maintaining ultra-low interest rates.

For global asset pricing, Japan's retreat from the ultra-loose and ultra-low interest rate edge is a key financial lever being gradually pushed back. For a long time, the yen has been a typical low-interest funding currency, and together with the ECB, has been regarded as a major source of global cheap liquidity; when Ueda signals a path of "sustaining rate hikes at a suitable pace," the expectation of a rise in yen rates begins to erode the carry trade based on the yen: borrowing yen, leveraging to buy global stocks, credit assets, or even Bitcoin and Ethereum, will all face multiple pressures from rising financing costs, increased hedging costs, and tightened risk budgets. As long as this expectation continues to ferment, high-risk positions relying on low-cost yen funding will be forced to reduce leverage, with high-beta assets at the end of the chain being the first to feel the pressure; for the crypto market, this means that the leveraged and arbitrage structures that originally relied on low-interest yen funding are facing a wave of slow but sustained pressure testing.

Global Liquidity Tightening Again: Risk Assets Being Repriced

When the ECB and the BOJ—two "last low-interest anchors"—are also expected by the market to enter a rate hike channel in 2026, the narrative of the global interest rate landscape is completely rewritten. In the June 3 Reuters survey, 49 out of 80 economists expect the ECB will raise interest rates twice in 2026, far above the previous month's survey proportions; at the same time, BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda has clearly stated that as long as the baseline scenario is more likely to be realized, the Bank will continue to raise policy rates at a suitable speed to achieve the 2% inflation target. Coupled with the previously extreme easing policy of the Federal Reserve shifting to a more cautious or even tightening stance, major economies are forming a new synchronized hawkish framework: there are no longer large pockets of low interest, and the "floor" of global risk-free returns and long-term yields is being raised overall.

Within this framework, the repricing of risk assets is not a localized event but a systemic process centered on the upward adjustment of discount rates. On one hand, the Eurozone is facing slowing growth while inflation remains high, and the risks of stagflation are frequently mentioned among the economists surveyed, making it more difficult for the ECB to quickly pivot to easing; on the other hand, geopolitical tensions and Middle Eastern situations driving up inflation expectations will make central banks more cautious when restarting large-scale easing. The result is that global real interest rates and long-term discount rates are rising, and high valuation, long-duration assets—from technology growth stocks to credit spreads, as well as Bitcoin and Ethereum, seen as high-beta—will all have to pay for the premiums established in the past on the basis of "zero interest + abundant liquidity." Under this backdrop, cross-border funds are inclined to deleverage, reduce risk exposure, and increase allocations to cash and short-duration bonds, while on-chain funds are more cautiously rebalancing between liquidity leaders like Bitcoin and high-volatility long-tail tokens. For the crypto market, this round of global liquidity repricing will continue to reshape the valuation boundaries of risk assets over the coming quarters through both discount rate increases and leverage compression.

Rate Hikes and Risk Aversion for BTC and ETH

Under the combination of rising rate hike expectations and stagflation worries in Europe and Japan, the "dual identity" of Bitcoin and Ethereum is being pulled in two directions: on one hand, they have shown typical high beta risk asset characteristics in several past cycles, being highly sensitive to global liquidity and changes in risk appetite; on the other hand, some institutions and retail investors view Bitcoin as "digital gold," tending to increase their allocation during fiat currency depreciation and rising geopolitical risks, though this "hedge" price curve is much steeper than that of gold. As a result, when the risk of stagflation in the Eurozone was highlighted by a majority of respondents in the Reuters survey, and the market began to price in two rate hikes by the ECB in 2026, fragmentation began to emerge within the same pool of funds: shrinking risk budgets drive reductions in high-volatility positions, while inflation and geopolitical anxieties propel the retention or even increase of some Bitcoin exposure. This causes the trading structure of BTC to swing repeatedly between "de-leveraging sell-offs" and "hedging buys," while ETH is treated more purely as a "substitute for tech stocks," directly suffering from the valuation compression brought about by rising discount rates and risk premiums.

The global rise in interest rates has raised the risk-free return rates of sovereign currencies such as the euro and yen, directly increasing leverage costs in the crypto market: whether it is structural financing within the European banking system or globally carry funding related to the yen, when the BOJ governor clearly discusses "continuing to raise policy rates at a suitable speed," this type of spillover leverage that originally depended on extremely low rates has to recalibrate the risk-reward ratio of holding high-volatility assets like BTC and ETH. For Japanese and European institutions, the "zero interest dividend" that could safely spill over to the US stock and crypto markets in 2024-2025 is disappearing, making compliant asset allocation models naturally increase their weight in local currency cash and short-duration bonds, compressing positions in crypto such as "satellite assets"; while for some funds that are more focused on macro trading, in the context of rising local interest rates, intertwined expectations of exchange rates and stagflation, Bitcoin may still be used as a tool for currency and geopolitical risk hedging, leading to mid-term pricing of BTC and ETH being more dependent on the actual rhythm of rate hikes and stagflation developments in Europe and Japan, rather than simply a one-way high beta trade driven by liquidity.

Trading Structure Switch: How Crypto Funds Protect Themselves

When the Reuters survey shows that 49 out of 80 economists expect the European Central Bank to raise interest rates twice in 2026, and BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda publicly emphasizes that the Bank will continue to raise rates "at a suitable pace" under the baseline scenario, the signal received by the market is clear: these two long-standing sources of low interest and liquidity in Europe and Japan are being repriced towards tightening. Historical experience shows that once major central banks turn towards tightening, global risk-free returns and discount rates rise, high-risk assets often experience valuation compression, deleveraging, and position restructuring; the previous "high beta + hedging narrative" for Bitcoin and Ethereum will be forced to rebalance. Under the combination of rising stagflation risk and increased geopolitical uncertainty, the internal dynamics of crypto will likely shift from a high-leverage pursuit of small coins and complex yield strategies to a defensive structure weighted towards mainstream assets, liquidity, and controllable risk: funds will concentrate on BTC and ETH, increase holdings of on-chain "dollar cash-like assets," decrease perpetual and option leverage multiples, and exchange returns for controllable drawdowns and liquidity premiums. To avoid passively taking hits in this round of macro repricing, it is worth continuously monitoring several variables: the actual rhythm and forward guidance of rate hikes by the ECB and BOJ, inflation and growth data reflecting the evolution of stagflation in the Eurozone, the impact of rising Japanese rates on global arbitrage chains, as well as the total scale and net flow of on-chain dollar-denominated cash-like assets, changes in the proportion of BTC/ETH in overall market capitalization, and the contraction or re-expansion of derivative holdings leverage and funding rates, because it is the combination of actual rate hike paths in Europe and Japan and the net flow of on-chain dollar funds that will truly determine the upper and lower limits of this round of crypto risk premiums.

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