Posted by iamnothere 5 hours ago
Germany moved 111t from New York in 2016, and, afaict, nothing since then. There's still 1236t left.
Italy also keeps over 1000t in New York (no plans for repatriation).
This is effectively outsourcing that process to the banks.
If the Banque de France holds physical in New York and sells it to JPMorgan (nothing moves) and then in Paris buys contract for physical from UBS, there will probably need to be physical gold that moves.
In all likelihood, Swiss gold held by e.g. a Gulf customer might be sold to Paris (nothing moves) and JPMorgan may entice Venezuela to take those contracts on its balance sheet (nothing moves). But if it’s a big trade, the price of delivering physical in Paris (or Genève) will go above spot in New York at which point it’s profitable for JPMorgan to take delivery, load up planes and physically ship gold.
It’s typically flown [1].
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
Although a sibling commenter mentioned that they moved their gold by selling it and rebuying it in Europe. If that gold qualifies as non-reserve gold after sale, and is moved out after sale to (for example) China, then perhaps?
Not sure if "The U.S governments gold reserves" also includes the ones from other countries though.
[0]: See the link in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50134172
Sounds like a refining bottleneck.
Globally, “refining capacity is operating at near-total utilization” [1]. That is particularly true in America, where refiners are “limiting purchases” [2] and “turning away new clients” [3].
Global demand for gold—lead by China—is surging. That, in turn, made gold “the most-developed commodity over 2020-25” with “the highest [new] mine count each year during the period” [4].
Where are those mines opening? In “Australia, Canada and the US,” which “accounted for the largest share of new gold production.”
[1] https://www.skillings.net/gold-refining-report-global-standa...
[2] https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/metal-refiners-t...
[3] https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/refining-pipelin...
[4] https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insight...
Sounds as if there is a point at which digging and refining is more expensive than buyers are willing to pay, so when demand goes up it takes time to expand supply.
"The Homestake Mine was a deep underground gold mine (8,000 feet or 2,438 m) located in Lead, South Dakota. Until it closed in 2002, it was the largest and deepest gold mine in the Western Hemisphere. The mine produced more than forty million troy ounces (43,900,000 oz; 1,240,000 kg) of gold during its lifetime. This is about 2,500 cubic feet (71 m3) or a volume of gold roughly equal to 18,677 US gallons.
...
In 1876, settlers Fred and Moses Manuel, Alex Engh, and Hank Harney discovered the Homestake deposit during the Black Hills Gold Rush. The Black Hills had been guaranteed to the Lakota Nation by the Fort Laramie Treaty, but the land was stolen for its gold."
When the illegal miners moved in on the Black Hills, Crazy Horse would on occasion raid them to sieze their gold, after which he would re-bury it.
How are service exports counted? All together? Or not considered exports?
Literally the link in the first paragraph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IEAXGG.
It’s conventional, in American English, for exports unadorned to mean just goods. It’s anachronistic. But it isn’t wrong.
As for aircraft, not that many in number, but very expensive things with very expensive parts.
Airliners and military aircraft are expensive. Consider that nearly the entire aircraft production capacity of Boeing and Lockheed-Martin as well as the engine production capacity of GE and P&W are booked for years to come. Also, unlike Airbus which has multiple final assembly plants across the world, Boeing only does final assembly in the US.
So many trillion-dollar valued AI-focused companies.
Mercury has seven stable isotopes ranging from 195 to 204, so purifying to 198 is challenging (this isotope is 10% of the metal's occurrence). Would this require centrifuges as uranium does?
The decay chains of the other isotopes would be different.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals#G...
The above reaction is at the end of the section.
I think the real reason is that they're afraid of political instability in the US that may result in 1) an inability to retrieve their gold, or 2) the government confiscating it.
A lot of this stuff is just business as usual, and then tabloids like to turn it into some doom and gloom nonsense.
I think the idea is to rise the value of your currency, you rise the demand for your currency, by selling for it something that everybody wants, like gold.
Of course this demand is artificial and you'll run out of hold to sell at some point, but it can hopefully carry you over thd bump.
Sincere question.
Nations like to use it for reserves because it’s stable, historically fit for the purpose of exchange, and well-understood. You can “count” it and use this to settle balances in a way that outsiders can’t easily interfere with.
Almost all “value” is strange and complex. Why is Francium, which is less useful than even gold, worth a theoretical $28 billion per ounce? (Not that you would find any buyers for that quantity.) Why is a Black Lotus card worth $3 million? Why is a dollar worth whatever you can buy for a dollar?
The short but final answer: because other people want it.
Massivly surprised to see a link to this storyline/paradigm here on HN, great!
Cheers! :-))
If you belive in such stories, it may explain why humans are so focused on Gold, and not other precious metals, which are much more rare.
The idea behind the story is just great, isnt it? The idea of whatever space travelling species to come here to mine for gold with human "robots" is really cool. While they could have landed on asteroids which much more Gold-per-ton, they chosed earth because the bio machines available here didnt need any "outer planetary" maintenance or refills?
:-D
edit: and they can replicate easily given enough environment, so you do not need spareparts when e.g. a disk fails?
And, gold is limited (in recoverable quantities) in Earth's crust. Nobody can print a bunch more of it, unlike fiat currency.
Between those two, it's what many people reach for when they fear that the government is going to devalue their currency. They can buy now, with currency that will soon be worth less, and what they buy will be worth something even after the currency becomes worth less.
Because you sell it cheap.
> Almost seems like crypto, it has value because it is somewhat rare… and everyone else also thinks it has value.
Exactly.
It has value because it won't spoil and you can sell it later gor the same or more because it's scarce.
This is not some big currency or export program. It's most likely Grandma and Grandpa hawking their jewelry.
The cash for gold industry in the US is absolutely massive and growing. Most of it is fueled by boomers dumping their assets into gold and silver - and then cashing it out when times get worse.
...
"When you put these factors together, my suspicion is that a high percentage of U.S. gold exports are going to China, though some must first detour through Swiss refineries to convert the gold into kilogram bars of acceptable purity. It is possible that the U.S. government may have acquiesced in this form of payment in return for other political concessions having to do with a number of global uncertainties."
-----------------
U.S. bond yields (the interest the U.S. pays on its debt) are increasing because there is less demand for U.S. treasury bonds. Lenders are reluctant to buy U.S. government debt, but the U.S. government needs that money, so it must pay more. This reduces the value of the USD (i.e. increases inflation) and makes the USD a less attractive reserve currency (A good reserve currency holds its value.)*. Gold is just one alternative option, but it is something the U.S. actually has a fair amount of. The U.S. would likely be exporting Swiss francs now if it had a lot of those too.
Why is there less demand for U.S. bonds? The U.S. is accruing a lot of debt with high spending and reduced taxes at the same time AI companies are competing for investment dollars (i.e. loans). There's only so much capital to go around, so interest rates go up.
TL;DR: U.S. spends too much. Taxes too little. AI companies spend too much. Make too little. Investors want more interest to supply cash, so U.S. bond yields go up and USD value goes down. Anyone looking for stable currencies to hold start switching to gold (or others). No grand Chinese conspiracy is necessary.
____________
* The USD is doing well at the current moment, almost inexplicably, but the important thing is what lenders think it will do in the future.
But yes, higher yields can be related to demand, but they're not simply a function of demand. They relate to things like inflation expectations, and so the short term rates set by the Fed, and the risk premium. In this case likely the higher rates are not high due to demand but rather due to inflation expectations and the Fed having raised the overnight rate.
Bid to cover can be one estimate of demand and I'm not really seeing anything particularly exciting going on here: https://en.macromicro.me/charts/30431/us-10y-bid-to-cover-ra...
>That’s not just because the price of gold reached record high prices. In February 2026, the tons of gold exported may have set an all-time record.
> Normally, America’s highest value exports are either oil, pharmaceuticals, or aircraft and their parts. Not now. Starting in October 2025, the value of gold exports has topped all other categories almost every month.
Relative to quantity, the price of gold might have less to do with why it’s the top of the list, but gold being more valuable in general might still be the main reason it’s at the top.
For example:
June
Oil at $1 a barrel
Gold at $10 a ton
100 barrels of oil exported - $100
9 tons of gold exported - $90
By value, oil is the top export.
——-
July
Oil at $1 a barrel
Gold at $9 a ton
100 barrels of oil exported - $100
12 tons of gold exported - $108
By value, gold is now the top export.
——-
Even though the price of gold dropped—-the inverse of our current situation to illustrate an extreme—-the general higher price of gold is more relevant to the ranking than its quantity increase.