저자: KenGriffin · 외국인
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중앙은행 금 보유액이 미 국채 보유액을 2026년 기준 처음으로 상회했다는 WGC 데이터를 근거로 달러 자산 대비 금의 구조적 우위를 주장. 2026년 중앙은행 설문에서 89%가 향후 12개월 금 보유 증가, 74%가 5년 내 달러자산 감소를 예상. 2022년 러시아 자산 동결이 중앙은행의 금 선호를 촉발. 금은 1월 고점 5,500달러 이후 4,000~4,200달러대 조정, 연준 매파 기조가 단기 상승을 제약한다고 평가. JP Morgan 6,000달러 목표 인용.
다듬은 글
There's a figure in new data from the World Gold Council that most CNBC viewers this morning don't even know exists. And once you understand what that means, you'll look at every dollar in your bank account differently . For the first time since 1996, in three full decades, the combined gold reserves of the world's central banks are now worth more than their combined holdings in U.S.
Treasury bonds. Read this again. Gold isn't just catching up. Gold outpaced them. An asset that central banks had used for 80 years as a backup plan, an insurance policy, something they held just in case, quietly became the primary plan, and what they had previously considered the safest asset on planet Earth— U.S.
Treasury bonds—was demoted in status. No one rang the bells about this. There was no press conference. It happened inside the mechanisms of central bank balance sheets, hidden in the footnotes, and by the time Wall Street noticed it, everything had already been resolved. I want to explain to you in detail how we got here, why it's happening now, in mid-2026 , what the world's smartest investors are doing about it, and what it means for you as someone trying to protect and grow what you've created.
Because this is not a story about gold fans. This is not hype. These are central banks, the most conservative and cautious institutions in the global financial system, who vote with real capital for which asset they trust the most. And their choices just changed. Let's start with the scale of what has actually changed.
Since 2021, central banks around the world have been buying gold at a pace no one alive has ever seen. A 2026 survey of 76 central banks by the World Gold Council found that reserve managers had been buying an average of about 1,000 tons of gold each year for four consecutive years. This is double the average of 500 tons over the previous decade.
89% of these central bankers, the people who literally manage the reserves of entire nations, say they expect further growth in global gold reserves over the next 12 months. And 74% say they expect their dollar assets to decline over the next 5 years. This is no longer a marginal idea. This is the consensus within institutions that move hundreds of billions of dollars at a time.
Who buys? Poland became the most prominent player in 2026, adding over 20 tons this year alone. This is part of an official plan to increase reserves to 700 tons, driven by the obvious fact that Poland is on NATO's eastern flank and wants to have a reserve asset that no one can freeze. China has added over 350 tons since 2021.
The People's Bank of China has now recorded 18 consecutive months of officially announced purchases. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Azerbaijan through their sovereign wealth fund. The list of buyers continues to grow, and it's no longer just the usual suspects. Even Japan, Thailand, Hungary and Singapore are making replenishment.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the balance, Russia and Turkey are the biggest net sellers this year. But this is not a vote of confidence in the dollar. This is fiscal desperation. Russia is liquidating gold to finance a war economy under sanctions. Turkey is selling to protect the lira. Different reasons, same signal.
Gold has become an asset that countries turn to when they are strong and an asset that they are forced to sell when they are weak. So, here is the question you should ask. Why now? Why 2026? The honest answer leads to one event in 2022 that many underestimated at the time : the freezing of approximately $300 billion in Russian central bank assets following the invasion of Ukraine.
It was the moment when the entire non-Western world saw how what was considered theoretically impossible actually happened. A G7 economy froze another sovereign state's reserves held in dollars in Western custodial accounts. And every finance minister and central bank governor from Beijing to Riyadh to Ankara looked at it and asked themselves the same uncomfortable question.
Could this happen to us? There is no such problem with gold. Gold sitting in your own vault under your control cannot be frozen by a foreign government with the click of a button. It does not carry counterparty risk, credit risk, or jurisdictional risk. According to a survey by the World Gold Council, 90% of central banks cited the effectiveness of gold during a crisis as the main reason for holding it.
And this number continues to grow every year as long as this trend continues. But there's a second engine to this process, and it's right here at home, and it's something that most people, frankly , don't want to talk about. The United States national debt is now approaching $40 trillion. The interest payments alone on this debt have grown to about a trillion a year.
Jeff estimates annual net interest expenses at over $1 trillion , which is currently about 19% of the federal government's total revenue. 19 cents of every dollar the government collects goes straight to interest before a single dollar is spent on anything else. Add mandatory social spending, and interest, along with it, now consumes over 93% of federal revenues.
That leaves little room for anything else, doesn't it? This structural math is the very reason why foreign investors pulled more than $138 billion out of U.S. Treasuries in a single month earlier this year. The sharpest monthly pullback since September 2022. When the people who should be your most reliable buyers start to walk away, even if gradually, it says a lot about how the market is quietly overestimating risk.
Some of you are now thinking, "Okay, but does the United States itself hold huge gold reserves?" Yes. The US remains by far the largest official holder of gold on the planet, with over 8,100 tonnes, or approximately 69% of its total reserves— more gold than Germany, Italy and France combined. So this is not a story about America falling behind in the "gold rush." This is a story about the rest of the world deciding that the dollar-denominated debt sitting in storage next to that gold is no longer as reliable as it once was.
Let's talk about how Jefferies described this moment, because their language is straightforward and it's worth hearing it directly. Christopher Wood, their global head of equity strategy , wrote that the world has effectively moved to what he calls a de facto gold standard. Not officially, not through any treaty or agreement, but functionally, because central banks now hold more value in gold than in Treasury bonds, even after the price of gold has retreated from its highs.
This is an extraordinary statement from a major global brokerage firm . Not from a gold bulletin, not from a marginal commentator, but from a leading institutional research department. So where does the price really stand now? And why did it cool down after the peaks? Gold reached a historic high of over $5,500 per ounce back in late January of this year.
And since then, it has rolled back and consolidated for most of the year in a range closer to $4,000–$4,200. Why did the pullback occur if the structural history is so strong? Two words: Kevin Warsh. The Federal Reserve Chairman has taken a noticeably hawkish stance during the first half of this year.
And with inflation concerns lingering and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East weighing on oil prices, markets have priced in a significant chance of another rate hike by the end of the year. Higher rates mean higher opportunity costs of owning metal that doesn't produce income. And this created a real ceiling for gold's short-term momentum.
JP Morgan's own research department describes gold as stuck in a "technical no-man's land": it is currently above its 200-day moving average but capped by the 50-day. This is not "bearish" rhetoric. This is the language of respite. And here's the part that should make you wary if you're only following the headline spot price.
On the surface, officially recorded purchases by central banks actually slowed sharply in the first quarter of this year. Central banks sold 129 tons of gold, mainly due to Turkey selling 60 tons in March, while officially reported purchases were only 16 tons. It seems as if the procurement story is coming to an end.
But if you dig deeper, you can see alternative data from the World Gold Council. Tracking over-the-counter flows in London and exports from Swiss refineries shows that total gold purchases in the first quarter actually rose to 244 tonnes compared to 28 tonnes in the previous quarter. There is no mandatory requirement for central banks to report purchases to the IMF, and a significant portion of the transactions occur quietly, outside of official reports.
China's net gold imports alone jumped to 317 tons in the first quarter, nearly three times the previous quarter, while the People's Bank of China's own purchases accelerated from about 1 ton per month to 8 tons in April. Someone is buying significantly more gold than official data shows. And when the official version indicates a slowdown, and the actual data on the ground indicates an acceleration, it is in this gap that the " smart money" begins to act.
Do you think it's a coincidence, or do the world's largest financial institutions understand something that the retail market hasn't yet grasped? There is another topic worth paying attention to, and it concerns China. Several of China's largest banks, such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank and others, have begun to wind down paper gold and silver trading services on the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
When institutions that control access to synthetic, unallocated precious metals close this access to ordinary customers, while the central bank simultaneously accumulates physical metal—this is not a subtle hint. This is a system that quietly reorients demand from paper commitments to physical delivery, right?
Because the world's central banks are doing the same thing with their own reserves. So, let's look at the situation more broadly and ask a question that really concerns you. Is this rally sustainable? Or is this a trap that will snap the moment the Fed raises rates and the dollar strengthens? I'll give you an honest answer from both sides, because anyone who says it's a one-sided deal is trying to sell you something.
The bearish scenario is quite real. If the Fed raises rates again this year, if the conflict in the Middle East de-escalates and oil prices fall, if the labor market remains resilient and inflation slows more quickly than expected, gold could face a significant correction. JP Morgan points to this as a real risk, even despite forecasts of a price of $6,000 per ounce by the fourth quarter of this year.
Gold does not pay coupons or dividends. In a world where a strong dollar and rising real yields make Treasuries attractive, gold can lag, sometimes significantly and sometimes for long periods of time. But the bullish scenario is based on factors that are not affected by interest rate cycles. A structural, multi-year reorientation of the entire global reserve system from the dollar order that has been forming for 80 years to real assets that do not carry counterparty risk.
Such a shift is not reversed in a quarter due to one “hawkish” statement by the Fed. Pierre Lasonde, co-founder of Franco-Nevada, drew a direct parallel to the late 1970s, when gold rose from around $35 an ounce to $850 an ounce in a period characterized by just this combination. Rapid debt growth, high inflation, declining confidence in the dollar, and conflict in the Middle East pushing up oil prices .
He is not alone . JP Morgan predicts $6,000 by the end of this year and $6,300 by the end of next year. Goldman Sachs expects central bank purchases to average about 60 metric tons per month through the end of 2026. None of this is a guarantee. These are valid institutional views , and you should treat them as such .
As information, not as the ultimate truth. This is what I advise you to keep an eye on in the future. Instead of just watching the spot price fluctuate on your screen, keep an eye on the Treasury's foreign asset data each month . Is this $113.8 billion pullback a one-time event, or is it the start of a new trend?
Keep an eye on China's net gold imports and the People's Bank of China's purchase reports. Will the acceleration we saw in the first quarter continue in the second half of the year? Watch what happens when the Fed makes a decision, whatever it is, as it will show how much of gold's current price range is due to Fed policy and how much is due to a deeper history of reserve diversification.
And watch for the gap between officially reported purchases by central banks and alternative flow data from the World Gold Council. Because right now this gap is one of the most honest signals in the entire market. And most people who check gold prices on their phones don't even know it exists. If you want to receive clear analysis of gold and silver based on research, not market noise and rehashed headlines, make sure you subscribe, because analyzing the data behind the headlines is exactly what we do here.
I want to know what you really think, because opinions are divided even among those who follow this market closely. Do you think that central banks' purchases of gold in excess of their Treasury bond holdings indicate a real, permanent shift in the global reserve order? Or do you think that will change once the Fed finishes raising rates and the dollar strengthens again?
Write your honest opinion in the comments. I read them, and perhaps the harshest criticism on this channel comes from the comments section, not from analysts. Here is the main takeaway I want you to leave with today. For 80 years, US Treasury bonds have been the undisputed foundation of the global financial system.
An asset that every central bank on the planet considered the closest thing to risk-free. This foundation did not collapse instantly and did not disappear. But for the first time in three decades, it is no longer the largest reserve asset held by central banks. Is this gold. And the institutions making these choices are not deal-chasing hedge funds or headline-hunting retail traders.
These are the most risk-averse and conservative managers of capital in the entire financial system. Sovereign central banks protecting the reserves of entire nations for decades to come. When they change their minds about what is actually safe. It's not just noise. This is a signal. And if you don't pay attention to what this signal means for your portfolio, you will be reacting to these changes years after the "smart money" has already prepared for them.
We will continue to follow developments together, right here. See you in the next video.
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