Sources for the video
China’s Gold, And What It Sold To Buy It
Everything I quoted in the video, with the source underneath it. If a number here does not match what you heard me say, the number here is the one I would defend. Sort the big table, find your own country, and check me.
One Correction Before You Start
In the video I say gold is about about 70% of reserves for America, Germany, France and Italy. That was too low. The World Gold Council figures put all four between 77% to 81%. I have left the real numbers in the table below rather than the ones I said out loud. The gap between them and China is wider than I described, not narrower, so the argument in the video survives the correction. It just should have been sharper.
Gold China HoldsWorld Gold Council, World Official Gold Holdings, August 2026 edition. China reports its official gold reserves monthly to the IMF, and this is the figure as of 30 June 2026.
2,346.4t
Reported to the IMF, June 2026
Gold As A Share Of China’s ReservesThe same file. Gold valued at market prices as a share of total reserves. It is worth knowing this number moves when the gold price moves, even if China buys nothing at all.
8%
The rest is mostly dollars
The Same Number For AmericaThe same file, dated 30 June 2026. America holds 8,133.5 tonnes and almost no foreign currency, which is why the share is so high.
81.4%
Ten times China’s share
China’s US Treasury HoldingsTreasury International Capital, Table 5, June 2026. I checked every month back to 1977: the last time this figure was lower was September 2008, at $618.2bn. Custody accounts in Belgium and Luxembourg mean the true Chinese position is probably higher than the headline, which is a caveat that cuts against the story, not for it.
$633.4bn
Lowest since September 2008
What China Has Been Buying
The buying is not steady and it is not new. China ran eighteen straight months of purchases into April 2024, stopped dead for six months, then started again in November 2024 and has not stopped since. What changed recently is the size. In September 2025 it added 40,000 ounces. In July 2026 it added 640,000.
Troy ounces added per month. The last bar, July 2026, is sixteen times the size of the first. March is left empty on purpose: I could not source a figure for that month, so drawing it at zero would claim a pause that I cannot evidence.
- Nov 2022 to Apr 202418 straight months, 315.9 tonnes added
- May to Oct 2024stopped completely, flat at 2,264.3 tonnes
- Nov 2024 to Jul 2026the current run, 21 months, up to 2,366 tonnes
Monthly figures as announced by the People’s Bank of China.PBoC monthly reserve announcements, cross-checked against World Gold Council reporting. March 2026 is missing from this chart because I could not stand up a figure for that month from a source I trust. It is drawn as a gap rather than a zero, because a zero would claim China paused and I have no evidence that it did.
What China Has Been Selling
This is the half of the story that gets left out. China has not simply been adding gold. It has been running down the thing gold is replacing. Its holdings of US government debt peaked in November 2013 and have fallen by roughly half since.
Billions of dollars. Monthly, January 2013 to June 2026.
Treasury International Capital, Table 5, through June 2026.The TIC series records securities by the country of the custodian, not the country of the owner. China holds an unknown amount through custody accounts in Belgium, Luxembourg and the UK, so its real position is very likely higher than this line shows. I am flagging that because it works against the argument I am making, and you should know it before you decide whether to believe me.
Gold As A Share Of National Reserves
This is the table the video sends you here for. The claim is not that China holds a lot of gold. In tonnes it holds less than Russia. The claim is that gold is a rounding error in China’s reserves at 8%, while the countries lecturing everyone about the dollar hold most of their reserves in it. Find your own country and see which side it sits on.
| United States | 8,133.5 | 81.4% | 2026-06-30 |
| Germany | 3,349.5 | 81.0% | 2026-04-30 |
| Italy | 2,451.8 | 77.0% | 2026-05-31 |
| France | 2,437.0 | 78.5% | 2026-04-30 |
| China | 2,346.4 | 8.0% | 2026-06-30 |
| Russia | 2,283.0 | 41.4% | 2026-06-30 |
| Switzerland | 1,039.9 | 12.7% | 2026-05-31 |
| India | 880.5 | 16.8% | 2026-06-30 |
| Japan | 846.0 | 8.5% | 2026-06-30 |
| Poland | 632.4 | 27.9% | 2026-06-30 |
| Netherlands | 612.5 | 70.0% | 2026-04-30 |
| Turkey | 530.6 | 56.4% | 2026-06-30 |
| Uzbekistan | 431.7 | 87.5% | 2026-06-30 |
| Kazakhstan | 368.4 | 76.6% | 2026-06-30 |
| United Kingdom | 310.3 | 18.6% | 2026-06-30 |
| Thailand | 234.5 | 10.9% | 2026-06-30 |
| Singapore | 203.7 | 5.9% | 2026-06-30 |
| Brazil | 172.4 | 6.1% | 2026-06-30 |
| Mexico | 120.0 | 5.7% | 2026-06-30 |
| Australia | 79.9 | 15.2% | 2026-06-30 |
| Canadasold the lot | 0.0 | 0.0% | 2016-02-29 |
Tap a column heading to sort. Canada is the only G7 country holding none at all: it peaked around 1,023 tonnes and sold the last of it in February 2016.World Gold Council, World Official Gold Holdings, August 2026 edition, which is built on IMF International Financial Statistics. Countries report on their own schedules, so the reporting date differs by row and is printed for each one. That matters because gold’s share of a country’s reserves moves with the gold price alone, so two rows dated differently are not strictly comparable. Canada does not appear in the file at all, because it is a list of gold holders and Canada holds none.
What Ten Years Of Lending To A Government Actually Did
The worked example from the video. Ten thousand dollars, put into a one-year government bond and rolled over every year, against the same ten thousand dollars measured in what it could actually buy at the end.
| Window | Ends up as | Worth in today’s money | Real change |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2015 to July 2026the window the video quotes | $12,606 | $8,892 | -11.1% |
| July 2016 to July 2026a true ten years | $12,617 | $9,102 | -9% |
Both windows lose money. The one I quoted loses slightly more.$10,000 buying a 1-year Treasury note and renewing it every year at that month's yield (FRED GS1), then deflated by CPI-U over the same window. The window I quote in the video runs January 2015 to July 2026, which is eleven and a half years rather than ten. I have shown a true ten-year window underneath it so you can see the difference the extra eighteen months makes. It is about two percentage points, and both windows end up below where they started.
Where Every Number Came From
- Gold reserves by country. World Gold Council, World Official Gold Holdings, August 2026 edition (IMF IFS). One hundred countries report; the twenty-one most relevant are shown. Each row carries its own reporting date because countries report on their own schedules.
- Canada. Canada does not appear in that file at all, because it is a list of countries that hold gold. It peaked around 1,023 tonnes and sold the last of it in February 2016. It is the only G7 country at zero.
- China’s Treasury holdings. Treasury International Capital Table 5 for recent months, and the Treasury’s own historical file for the full series back to 2013. Peak was November 2013 at $1,316.7bn.
- Monthly gold purchases. PBoC monthly reserve announcements. March 2026 is missing and is shown as a gap.
- The ten thousand dollar example. FRED series GS1 for the one-year Treasury yield, CPI-U for inflation over the same window.
- Reserves totals. China’s official reserve assets stood at roughly $3.41tn in April 2026, the largest in the world. Japan is second at roughly $1.38tn.
Built 2026-08-22. Treasury figures are current to 2026-06. Gold figures are from the August 2026 edition (IMF IFS).