Abenomics

Abenomics is the economic program launched by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe after his December 2012 election, built on three arrows: aggressive monetary easing, flexible fiscal stimulus, and structural reform. Its centerpiece was the Bank of Japan's 2 percent inflation target and the massive asset purchases that began in 2013.

Why it matters

Abenomics became the world's most ambitious experiment in monetary stimulus. The Bank of Japan bought government bonds, corporate debt, and even equity ETFs at a scale that eventually pushed its balance sheet past 100 percent of Japan's GDP, a level no other major central bank has approached. The yen weakened substantially, asset prices rose, but the 2 percent inflation goal stayed out of reach for nearly a decade until global inflation arrived in 2022.

The program demonstrated both the power and the limits of central bank policy: it could move markets and currency values decisively, yet struggled to engineer the precise inflation rate it wanted.

In the gold vs bitcoin debate

Abenomics is a standard exhibit for holders of both assets. It shows a major government explicitly targeting the debasement of its own currency, which is the exact scenario gold and bitcoin are designed to hedge. Gold priced in yen reached repeated record highs during and after the program, and Japanese savers became notable early adopters of bitcoin. When policymakers promise inflation, assets with fixed or slowly growing supply become the natural counterweight.