From a technical standpoint, copper is currently flipping a ≈20 year old resistance for support. On a monthly chart, copper is in a multi-year upwards channel, and it’s now close to the upper trend line of that channel. Copper is also at record lows when priced in terms of gold and silver.
From a fundamental, supply/demand perspective, copper is required for electrification, data centers, new buildings, electric vehicles, and electric appliances in general.
The tariffs imposed by the U.S. on the European countries are detrimental to USD's position as a reserve currency. A capital outflow out of the U.S. dollar creates positive price pressure on gold via increased demand.
This is true regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on whether President Trump can lawfully impose unilateral broad tariffs via executive order using the the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEAP).
It summarizes down to increased pressure on swapping USD-denominated reserves for gold (and renminbi/Chinese Yen), and the disincentives for acquiring/rolling-over USD treasuries, bonds and notes.
On November 22nd 2005 the president of Russia stated:
- "I believe it's necessary for the Central Bank to pay more attention to precious metals within the territory of the Russian Federation when forming gold and foreign-currency reserves. Those reserves are even called 'gold and foreign-currency' reserves. There's nothing to be shy about here."
At the start of 2026, gold represents ≈43% of Bank of Russia's (BoR) international reserves. Back in 2005, gold accounted for a mere ≈3.5% of the same reserves account.
Since November 2005, gold is up ≈840%, i.e. almost 10 times. In the same period, S&P 500 TR increased ≈726%, or almost 9 times. This means that (anecdotally) Central Bank of Russia's strategy outperformed the U.S. stock market index by ≈14%
Currently, gold trades at ≈$4400/oz (when you're reading this it's probably much higher ). This means there is about $4400-$1910=$2490 of margin on each ounce of refined gold. Almost all of this margin on the sale of an ounce of gold is pocketed by gold miners.
Since 1997 Bulgaria has operated under a currency board arrangement (CBA), which is an exchange rate regime where a country commits to keep its local currency to a fixed exchange rate against an anchor currency. For Bulgaria, that anchor currency is the Euro.
Given this, any discourse about how Bulgaria's entry into the Eurozone implies a dramatic change to its monetary sovereignty is likely unfounded. It didn't happen overnight - it's been an almost 30 year long process. Joining the Eurozone does, however, remove the pegging frictions for Bulgaria, and allows them to fully integrate into the monetary union.
Gold as a percentage of balance sheet size in Central Banks (ranked):
+ Japan (MoF + BoJ): ≈2.4%
+ China (PBoC): ≈4.5%
+ U.S. (Fed gold certificates): ≈15.9%
+ European Union (ECB + Eurosystem): ≈19.4%
+ Russia (BoR): ≈36.1%
Conclusions you can take from here:
- China's current gold reserves are small relative to its central bank balance sheet and ambitions for the renminbi, so the PBoC is likely to keep buying gold for years to move closer to a gold-backed reserve-currency profile.
- Russia has accumulated large reserves that will allow a strong expansion of ruble credit once trade normalizes, likely triggering a rally in Russian capital markets.
- The EU is relatively well-positioned but should both grow its gold reserves and deepen its capital markets (e.g., via CMU) to strengthen the euro’s appeal as a reserve currency.
MicroStrategy Is Dependent On Refinancing Capacity, Not Bitcoin Price
MSTR won't have to sell Bitcoin if BTC price goes down, they'll have to sell Bitcoin if they're unable to acquire funding along the maturity of their debt wall.
MicroStrategy is essentially a leveraged trade on Bitcoin, based on the following cycle:
1. Acquire funding via debt or equity
2. Buy Bitcoin
3. Repeat
This cycle works for as long as MSTR is able to obtain funding. Once funding becomes unavailable (i.e. market isn't willing to lend at favorable interest rates), funding must come from asset liquidation (i.e. the sale of Bitcoin).
But the total amount of gold seized worldwide is much smaller than Bitcoin (using today's spot prices). There is a popular argument that Bitcoin is better than gold because it's harder/impossible to seize, which is simply not true.
If you think that Bitcoin is harder to seize than gold, you are probably wrong. At least according to the data.
In the history of Bitcoin's existence, much much more Bitcoin has been seized than Gold. You don't need to compromise cryptographic primitives to seize Bitcoin.
In the past 10 years, ≈$90B in Bitcoin has been seized vs ≈$3B for gold (using today's market prices)
If you think that Bitcoin is harder to seize than gold, you are probably wrong. At least according to the data.
In the history of Bitcoin's existence, much much more Bitcoin has been seized than Gold. You don't need to compromise cryptographic primitives to seize Bitcoin.
In the past 10 years, ≈$90B in Bitcoin has been siezed vs ≈$3B for gold (using today's market prices)
How would you suggesting restructuring the legal system so that currency becomes fully a central bank liability?
And how would such a restructuring help to improve the current model?
And very importantly - what is the practical next step? You can't make all of the U.S. dollar a direct liability of the central bank overnight without collapsing the global financial and geopolitical structure?
FedNow is a real-time payment system for interbank transfers - it doesn't replace commercial banks.
Commercial banks are credit, lending, deposit-taking and risk management institutions. FedNow focuses on settlement. Replacing commercial banks would require public access to central bank accounts, which isn't allowed under virtually all jurisdictions.
This is not just about efficiency, but how the financial market infrastructure works. Central banks aren't just about adding a label - they're a core entity behind currencies that we use for day to day payments
I'm not sure what you mean by "We've been buying stuff without using currency for decades". Unless you're purchasing with gold - you're likely using currencies
From a technical standpoint, copper is currently flipping a ≈20 year old resistance for support. On a monthly chart, copper is in a multi-year upwards channel, and it’s now close to the upper trend line of that channel. Copper is also at record lows when priced in terms of gold and silver.
From a fundamental, supply/demand perspective, copper is required for electrification, data centers, new buildings, electric vehicles, and electric appliances in general.