France found a novel way to get its gold reserves that were located in the U.S. back into their own country by selling that gold in New York (when the spot price had reached a high water mark), and then repurchased it back in France during a period when the spot price came back down again, resulting in a 8.1 billlion EUR profit (approximately $15 billion). As the article noted:
The Bank of France did not try to raise the issue of withdrawal or transfer of their gold. Instead, they simply sold the older, less pure gold bars in New York for what they were worth in U.S. dollars as gold prices were reaching all-time highs, then pocketed the cash and bought bars that met their updated weight and purity standards in Europe, as prices conveniently pulled back.
The other important benefit of this move is these newer gold bars are up to modern technical certification standards (verifying things like their authenticity, quality, purity, and weight). And that is how France framed it (as a technical modernization of their reserves).
In the world of numismatics, grading services (like ANACS, NGC, PCGS to name a few) were long established in order to help facilitate the authenticity and grading of both paper and coin currency for collectors. The majority of the gold coinage that I’ve collected have been graded via these services (including ones using PCGS’ newer Gold Shield). Examples at the end.
The larger gold bars purchased by governments are similarly certified (plus newer bars have been created with higher purity and accurate weights). This move by France has geopolitical weight (pun somewhat intended) because it signifies a trend where the world’s leading economies are increasingly viewing physical gold not just as a financial asset, but as essential “National Security Infrastructure” that must be kept within reach within their territorial borders.
Various countries have long held gold reserves in the U.S. (at the Federal Reserve) since it was considered safe; the days of the United States being a reliable partner are long over especially under this chaotic, criminal, and incompetent Trump regime. More countries like Germany are looking at this as being less than safe since there is always the possibility that those assets could be frozen and seized without any legal basis (the Iran war has exemplified this where our own regime will lie to justify their law breaking actions).
Furthermore, when the POTUS is mentioning “taking their oil”, what’s to stop this thief from doing the same with the gold reserves for other countries that are stored with the Federal Reserve? Simply withdrawing those reserves seems to be proving not as easy based on Germany’s attempts to repatriate their gold (the article mentioned they were even denied access to inspect their gold back in 2012).
The geopolitical situation in the Middle East with the Strait of Hormuz highlights another shift as well. The tankers that are making it through and paying the tolls to Iran, are doing so in either Chinese Yuan or stablecoin currencies including ironically, Trump Coins (this latter one is psychologically humorous because it telegraphs how he’s paying for it at the expense of everyone else). Whose to say that gold backed assets of some sort may not eventually make a return (and be used as a reserve currency)?
Regardless, the days of oil reserves being paid for in the U.S. Dollar are over as well which of course also means the days of the U.S. Dollar being the world’s reserve currency, is also going to be coming to an end. And once this gains momentum, the decoupling will happen elsewhere including the financial markets where much of it is arbitraged against the USD. A devalued/destabilized dollar will really hit the US economy and households hard (not to mention having that global impact). In short, many people have no idea what is coming down the pipeline in terms of economic catastrophe.
This destabilization has long been the goal of the likes of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and David Sacks (he is the regime’s crypto and AI czar; the original position was abolished in March 2026 but he remains serving in the same capacity in another role in PCAST); these three are known as the PayPal mafia. By destabilizing the USD in this manner, their main objective is to be able to use that to promote cryptocurrency as a viable global replacement instead of a single countries currency. Naturally, all three have long had their hands in various crypto schemes (as do many others in positions of power in the current U.S. government) in order to be the largest profiteers.
WLFI is a crypto firm backed by the Trump family as well as Steve Witkoff’s sons Alex and Zach. Witkoff is the special envoy to the Middle East. See the self dealing and corruption? Another thing is this backdoor “kill switch”; if true, that means they can literally lock people out where they can also lose access to their tokens. When this technology is in the hands of criminals, it allows all sorts of money laundering and pilfering schemes which have little accountability (plus the regulatory environment for crypto in the U.S. has been purposely kept lacking because the criminals are the ones with the keys to the vault/getting in the way of proper legislation).
Additionally, China had other things in mind; they of course used their influence with Iran in the current situation with the Strait to have the Yuan used along with crypto (in the form of stablecoins). This is why I previously mentioned about “pulling up a front row seat” in terms of watching the United States willingly drive itself off the cliff (because anyone can easily watch this empire and hegemony coming to an end with all of these recent incompetent moves against Iran). When you don’t understand and underestimate your opponent, it ends up becoming a self-owning prophecy.
As for countries looking to repatriate their gold out of the U.S. it’s only one area where this loss of trust will manifest itself. This will spill over into business dealings and anything that requires a close partnership. This loss of trust will not be easy to build back up (likely not in my lifetime).
Tangent from earlier: Slabbed gold coinage that have been certified and graded:
