Bessent publicly declared he has "asymmetric information" on yen intervention and dared currency traders to bet against him.
A 29-year-old Bessent convinced Soros to short the pound in 1992, earning the firm $1 billion when Britain exited the ERM.
USD/JPY dropped from 163 to 154 in two months, with a Bank of Japan rate hike the live test of whether Bessent's dare holds.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent walked up to a microphone this week and said something Treasury Secretaries do not usually say out loud. Bessent declared, "I am the house now, so when we intervene with the Japanese yen, I have pretty good insight into what the Japanese, what the Bank of Japan is going to do, what Japanese policymakers are going to do." Then the dare: "And you can bet against me if you want." Asked whether he was taking a risk, he answered: "Whenever people say, 'Oh, well, Treasury Secretary is taking a risk,' well, it's my dream, I have asymmetric information." The remarks, reported Wednesday by Bloomberg and picked up across the Financial Times, MarketWatch and Reuters, land with a particular resonance because of who is saying them.