Morning Minute: Japan’s Crypto-Friendly Takaichi Wins Landslide Victory

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors fall Sunday after major recovery bounce; BTC at $69k
• Japan’s crypto-friendly PM wins landslide election, Japan markets soar
• White House to host next roundtable w/ banks & crypto firms on Tuesday
• MegaETH revealed that TGE is dependent on 3 primary KPIs
• BNKR leads weekend price action as fees level up

Japan’s Crypto-Friendly PM Wins Landslide, Sending Japanese Markets

Japan just gave crypto bulls a reason to look East.

📌 What Happened

Sanae Takaichi, leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democrat Party, secured a projected 274-326 seats out of 465 in Japan’s lower house on Sunday, crushing the opposition and cementing her status as Japan’s strongest leader in years.

The “Takaichi trade” immediately kicked in: USD/JPY climbed 0.2% to 157, while BTC/JPY jumped nearly 5%.

The victory gives her a mandate to push through sweeping reforms, including plans to slash crypto taxes from 55% to a flat 20%, allow loss carryforwards, reclassify major cryptocurrencies as financial products, and potentially launch crypto ETFs by 2028.

Japan has seen 120%+ year-on-year growth in on-chain value received, according to Chainalysis.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“My sincerest congratulations to Prime Minister Takaichi on her historic victory, securing the biggest post-war electoral margin in Japanese history.

As [POTUS] has said, she will not let the people of Japan down.

When Japan is strong, the U.S. is strong in Asia, and the Prime Minister’s great relationship with President Trump demonstrates well the lasting bonds between our nations.” – Scott Bessent on X

🧠 Why It Matters

Japan is the world’s third-largest economy, and it’s about to become one of the most crypto-friendly major markets on the planet.

The current 55% tax on crypto gains has driven investors offshore for years. A 20% flat rate plus loss carry forwards would make Japan competitive with Hong Kong and Singapore overnight.

More importantly, Takaichi’s mandate removes political uncertainty. The LDP now has a supermajority that can actually pass legislation. That means faster tax reform, quicker reclassification, and stronger backing for stablecoin and tokenization infrastructure.

The Japanese stock market already responded, pumping 6% on its open Sunday night.

Crypto likely won’t pump overnight on the back of this news.

But we will take any positive tailwinds we can get in these times…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are red overnight after a major relief rally on Friday brough BTC back to $70k; BTC -3% at $68.9K; ETH -5% at $2,030; SOL -5% at $84; XRP -3% at ~$1.40
• H (+11%), DCR (+9%) and WLFI (+4%) led top movers
• Bitcoin rebounded 11% on Friday, climbing back above $70K after touching $60K Thursday in its worst single-day drop since FTX collapsed
• XRP led the recovery, rocketing 17% as the bounce gathered momentum
• China formalized bans on yuan-linked stablecoins and classified most RWA tokenization as illegal
• The Financial Times published an opinion piece positing that at $69k, Bitcoin is still $69k too expensive
• The White House is set to host another roundtable with crypto firms and banks tomorrow to push towards agreement on Clarity Act
• South Korean exchange Bithumb accidentally credited users with 2,000 BTC each instead of a tiny cash reward (recovered 99%)
• Coinbase’s crypto-backed loans notched record liquidations with $170M wiped out via Morpho in a week, including $90.7M on Thursday alone
• Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest sold $19M in Coinbase shares Thursday, just days after buying more COIN
• Bitfarms pumped on news that it’s pivoting from Bitcoin mining to AI, rebranding, and moving to the U.S.

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The BTC ETFs saw $371M in net inflows on Friday while the ETH ETFs saw $17M in outflows
• Block (Jack Dorsey) is cutting up to 10% of staff (~1,100 jobs) as it pivots deeper into Bitcoin mining unit Proto and AI tool Goose; still holds 8,780 BTC worth ~$622M
• Strategy, BitMine, Coinbase posted major rebounds Friday as BTC stabilized

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme majors were mostly red down 3-5%; DOGE -4%, SHIB -4%, PEPE -6%, TRUMP -3%, FARTCOIN -7%
• BNKR nearly doubled to $100M over the weekend after the protocol racked up ~$2M in weekly fees (now $84M)
• Pippin led volume on Solana, jumping 24% to $260M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• MegaETH revealed that its MEGA token won’t go live (TGE) until 3 KPIs are hit, including USDM hitting $500M+, 10 MegaMafia apps with baseline usage and 3 apps with $50k+ in daily fees
• Coinbase adopted the Sui token standard, putting them alongside other supported standards like ETH and SOL
• Crypto dot com CEO spent $70M on the domain “AI.com”

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly green over the weekend; Punks even at 29.9 ETH, Pudgy +6% at 4.54 ETH, BAYC +8% at 6.34 ETH; Hypurr’s -2% at 460 HYPE
• Del Mundos (+31%) and Clone X (+17%) led notable movers