On the first day of December, Bitcoin dealt the market a heavy blow. That slight warming trend from last week? It evaporated in just a few hours.

The trigger for this market crash is across the Pacific— the Governor of the Bank of Japan suddenly turned hawkish, and the interest rate hike expectations skyrocketed. U.S. stock futures couldn't hold up, and the crypto market suffered as well. It's important to realize how appealing the "borrowing yen to buy dollars" arbitrage strategy has been in the past few years; now that the yen is really set to increase interest rates, this strategy will have to be completely overturned, and global liquidity will tighten accordingly.

The technical aspect is also not strong. Bitcoin's monthly closing in November could not break through the key resistance level, and just last week, U.S. stock market makers were on holiday, making the market as thin as paper. With a few large sell orders, the price collapsed tragically.

The more troublesome issue is the time window. December was originally the last opportunity this year to speculate on interest rate cuts. After this month, until February next year, we basically enter a vacuum period for the narrative of interest rate cuts—at least two months with little room for imagination on interest rate reductions. If there are no new stories to attract funds during this period, how can the market turn around? Difficult.

This week, there are several data points to keep an eye on: Wednesday's ADP employment report, where worse data actually benefits (boosting rate cut expectations); Friday's PCE price index has less impact than before, while PMI data and Powell's speech are more critical. In short, everyone is waiting for Powell to speak—will he release dovish signals or continue to be ambiguous, directly determining the short-term market direction.

Whether Bitcoin can stabilize depends on this week.