Finance
Japan, U.S. finance chiefs agree to closely consult on forex
Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said Wednesday that he has agreed with new U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that they will closely consult with each other on foreign exchange moves, but he declined to elaborate.
The agreement comes as investors gauge how President Donald Trump’s pledges will affect currency markets, including whether his possible tariff hikes would push up the U.S. dollar amid mounting inflationary pressure in the United States, further weighing on the Japanese yen.
Kato told reporters at his ministry after his online talks that he thanked Bessent for choosing him for his first virtual meeting with a counterpart since taking office earlier this week under Trump, who returned to the White House on Jan. 20.
“As for foreign exchange, we confirmed we will closely consult as ministers overseeing overall economic and financial matters,” Kato said, adding they reaffirmed Japan and the United States will cooperate in tackling global and bilateral challenges.
The yen remains on a downward trend against the dollar on speculation that the interest rate gap between the two countries is unlikely to narrow significantly despite the Bank of Japan’s additional monetary tightening, decided late last week.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to halt rate cuts if tariff increases drive up import costs and accelerate inflation at home. Some analysts said the Fed might begin raising interest rates again.
Kato, who became finance minister in October, said he also agreed with Bessent, a billionaire who has served as a hedge fund manager, to work together on a broad range of topics, from geopolitics to the financial sector in the international arena.
When asked whether they had discussed U.S. tariff hike policies set to be implemented by the Trump administration during his nonconsecutive second term through 2029, Kato said he would not give specific details of his talks with Bessent.
The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed Bessent, an economic adviser to Trump in last year’s presidential campaign, as the new treasury secretary. He will be responsible for shaping economic and financial policies, including tax cuts and higher tariffs.
Bessent will also be tasked with addressing the growing budget deficit and rising debt of the world’s largest economy.
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Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has responded to renewed criticism about the network’s total value locked (TVL) and relatively sluggish decentralized finance (DeFi) growth.
On October 31, Hoskinson acknowledged the gap between Cardano’s DeFi activity and leading blockchains like Ethereum and Solana. However, he said the numbers fail to capture the network’s broader participation and governance strength.
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Cardano Bets on Bitcoin Interoperability to Unlock Billions in DeFi Liquidity
Hoskinson pushed back on the long-standing belief that introducing major stablecoins such as USDT or USDC would automatically transform Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem.
“No one’s ever made the argument and explained how the existence of one of these larger stablecoins is magically going to make Cardano’s entire DeFi problem go away, make the price go up, massively improve our MAUs, our TVL, and all these other things,” he said.
He argued that their arrival alone would not solve the network’s structural challenges or guarantee growth.
According to him, Cardano already has native, asset-backed stablecoins like USDM and USDA that can be minted at will and rarely lose their peg.
Instead, Hoskinson pointed to user behavior as the main reason Cardano’s DeFi TVL remains small.
For context, he noted that the network has about 1.3 million users who stake or participate in governance, collectively holding more than $15 billion in ADA.
However, those figures don’t count toward TVL metrics, and most ADA holders remain passive participants rather than active liquidity providers.
“Cardano has a fertile ecosystem. There’s a lot of people floating around. There’s a lot of people who hold ADA, who have Cardano wallets, who have been in our ecosystem — in many cases more than five years. But not a lot of those people have crossed the chasm to use DeFi in Cardano,” he stated.
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He added that this distinction creates a “chicken-and-egg” loop for Cardano’s ecosystem. According to Hoskinson, the network’s low activity deters partnerships and liquidity, while the lack of external integrations further limits on-chain adoption.
To counter these limitations, Hoskinson outlined a multi-year roadmap that ties DeFi growth to real-world finance and Bitcoin interoperability.
He highlighted the Midnight network—a privacy-focused sidechain—and RealFi, a microfinance platform targeting African markets, as key initiatives.
Both will integrate with Bitcoin DeFi, allowing ADA and BTC to be lent, converted into stablecoins, and used in real-world lending products.
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Hoskinson expects this combination to drive “billions of dollars” in new liquidity while attracting Bitcoin’s vast capital base. He also cited ongoing projects such as Leios, as proof that Cardano continues to evolve at the protocol level.
Still, he conceded that Cardano’s core issue is coordination and accountability, not technology.
“It’s not a technology problem. It’s not a node problem. It’s not a problem of imagination and creativity. It’s not a problem of execution. We can pretty much do anything. It’s a problem of governance and coordination and ultimately accountability and responsibility,” Hoskinson said.
To fix this, he proposed delegating clear responsibility for ecosystem expansion. He also called for targeted marketing and event strategies to mobilize ADA holders toward DeFi participation.
“The problem isn’t the ability to do a marketing campaign. The problem isn’t our ability to ship great software. It’s that there’s no one accountable to actually conceive of it, execute it, and be held accountable to the outcome of it. That’s the problem in a nutshell. So that is the problem we have to solve next year as we look to 2026,” He stated.
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