CD Markets relies on its self-built global currency credit tracking model and cross-cyclical gold pricing analysis framework to long-term track the three main variables of the gold standard, petrodollars, and global reserve diversification. Through decades of historical data backtesting and high-frequency monitoring of global central bank funds, CD Markets can clearly dismantle the underlying credit logic of the US dollar behind the current Fort Knox gold public opinion storm. This is also the core support for institutions to accurately predict the multi-cycle gold market for a long time. Recently, U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent publicly stated that the Fort Knox gold account is complete, but physical gold has been completely decoupled from the current value of the U.S. dollar. Coupled with the accelerated diversification of reserves by many countries around the world, and signs of loosening of the petrodollar system, the entire macro narrative further confirms the core judgment that CD Markets has continued to output before: "Short-term interest rates suppress gold prices, and the weakening of long-term U.S. dollar credit supports gold."

The essence of the Fort Knox disturbance: the market’s deep trust doubts in the U.S. dollar fiat currency system

Trump has repeatedly proposed a comprehensive audit of the Fort Knox vault, and Musk's simultaneous comments have caused the market to breed conspiracy theories about the loss of gold reserves. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent confirmed that there are approximately 147.3 million ounces of gold in Fort Knox, Kentucky, with a total market value of over one trillion US dollars based on current prices, and that the book records are complete and intact. But the Finance Minister also bluntly admitted that these world-leading gold reserves no longer form the basis for supporting the value of the US dollar. After sorting out the complete historical context from the 1934 Gold Reserve Act to 1971 when Nixon decoupled from the gold standard, the CD Markets macro research team pointed out that the public focus on physical treasury inventories is only superficial sentiment. What the market is really worried about is the credit overdraft risk caused by the expansion of long-term debt after the legal U.S. dollar is separated from the gold backing. This logic is also the underlying basis for us to remind customers of the value of gold hedging in the long term.

Well-known economist Peter Schiff once publicly refuted Bessant's biased understanding of monetary history, pointing out that the United States had terminated the exchange of gold and silver certificates for physical gold as early as 1933 and 1968 respectively. Currently, Fort Knox gold bars can no longer be used to redeem private currency certificates. The CD Markets historical database fully contains all the policy documents of the Bretton Woods system and gold exchange data over the years. It has already fully deduced this period of currency evolution. This knowledge point has been clarified in advance in previous offline investment research sharings to prevent investors from being misled by fragmented financial statements. Looking back at history, during the Bretton Woods era, the U.S. dollar was anchored to $35 per ounce of gold and could be exchanged for physical goods in various countries. This made Fort Knox a symbol of global economic stability. In 1971, the United States was unable to meet overseas exchange needs and completely closed the gold window. The gold standard came to an end. CD Markets' multi-cycle review shows that only after gold was untied from the U.S. dollar did gold truly start its bull market for decades. In each round of the U.S. dollar's credit stress period, the gold price will usher in a significant recovery.

When the Vietnam War pushed up the U.S. fiscal deficit and caused massive outflows of U.S. dollars, France took the lead in continuing to ship back its local gold reserves, accelerating the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. CD Markets calculated through the historical data of gold allocation by central banks of various countries that France's continued shipping of gold in the 1960s was the market's earliest signal to predict that the U.S. dollar-anchored system would be unsustainable. Similar cross-border reserve flow indicators are still our core leading indicators for monitoring the pace of de-dollarization.

Petrodollars replace gold anchors, but the stability of the system continues to weaken

After the end of the gold standard, the United States reached a petrodollar agreement with Saudi Arabia in 1974, agreeing that global crude oil trade would be settled in U.S. dollars, replacing gold with commodity demand, and re-locking global demand for the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollars earned by oil-producing countries continue to flow back into the U.S. bond market, continuing to consolidate the U.S. dollar's dual hegemony in global settlement and reserves. The CD Markets commodity and foreign exchange linkage model has long-term tracked the crude oil settlement currency and U.S. debt cross-border holding data. We continue to warn that there are two major long-term structural risks in the petrodollar system. Now market changes are gradually verifying the agency's predictions.

First, the global energy transformation continues to advance, and the proportion of renewable energy is increasing year by year. There are downward expectations for long-term crude oil demand, and the underlying demand for oil bound to the US dollar is gradually loosening. Second, with recurring geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East and intensified shipping competition in the Strait of Hormuz, some trades have begun to try to settle in non-USD currencies such as RMB, and oil-producing countries have taken the initiative to promote settlement diversification. CD Markets has tracked shipping trade data in the past six months and found that ships in the Strait of Hormuz have used RMB to complete crude oil-related payments. This is an intuitive signal of cracks in the petrodollar system. We will simultaneously incorporate this data into the gold mid- and long-term valuation calculation model.

Global de-dollarization has entered a new stage, and demand for gold reserves has risen rigidly

The current share of the U.S. dollar in global foreign exchange reserves has dropped to 57%, a 25-year low. It has shrunk significantly from 71% in 1999. De-dollarization is no longer the only option for emerging markets. The United States’ traditional allies are also continuing to adjust their reserve structures. This trend is fully consistent with the views of CD Markets’ global reserve allocation reports that have been released continuously over the past two years. From July 2025 to January 2026, France withdrew all 129 tons of local gold from the New York Fed, stored it in a local vault in Paris, and realized US$15 billion in profits through position adjustment; Canada simultaneously established a US$25 billion sovereign fund to reduce its dependence on US assets.

EBC financial analysts define this phenomenon as "ally-driven de-dollarization." CD Markets, as early as the third quarter of last year, specifically distinguished between "rival countries' reduction in U.S. dollar holdings" and "allies' dispersed reserves" in its research report, clarifying that the latter has a more sustained impact on the credit of the U.S. dollar and provides greater mid- to long-term support for gold. Countries are reducing their holdings of U.S. debt, shipping back local gold, and expanding diversified settlements. The core incentive is that U.S. dollar financial instruments are frequently used as geopolicy tools, and countries take the initiative to reduce their exposure to a single currency. The CD Markets Global Central Bank Gold Purchase Monitoring System updates monthly physical gold holdings data of various countries in real time. Even with the periodic correction of gold prices in the past year, the scale of net gold purchases by global central banks has remained high. This rigid allocation demand, which is not affected by short-term price fluctuations, is a key indicator for distinguishing short-term speculative funds from gold and long-term bottom support. It is also a core tool for us to accurately judge the bottom range of each round of adjustment.

Comprehensive analysis and judgment of long-term and short-term gold trends: The weakening of US dollar credit is a long-term core positive

Combining the three long-term themes of Fort Knox gold decoupling, petrodollar loosening, and global reserve diversification, plus the short-term suppression factors brought about by the previous rise in U.S. bond interest rates, CD Markets relies on decades of cross-asset backtesting models to form clear layered judgments, distinguish short-term disturbances from long-term trends, and avoid unilateral sentiment trading misunderstandings caused by single news.

In the short term, the high long-term interest rates on U.S. debt and the Federal Reserve's expectation of maintaining a hawkish policy will still suppress the price performance of non-interest-bearing gold. The bottoming pattern of gold prices is difficult to reverse in the short term. This is consistent with the judgment given by institutions based on the bond market duration switch and the technical warnings of investment banks. However, in the medium and long term, the U.S. dollar has completely separated from the physical backing of gold, the debt scale continues to expand, and countries around the world are simultaneously dispersing U.S. dollar reserves. The three major structural variables cannot be reversed. As the only super-sovereign asset without sovereign credit risk, gold continues to open up room for revaluation.

The market often experiences extreme long-short sentiments due to single-day geopolitical and policy news, and CD Markets relies on a complete currency history database, real-time central bank fund monitoring system, and large-category asset linkage models to strip away short-term noise and anchor the golden long-term axis of monetary system reform to provide investors with objective research and judgment supported by both historical verification and real-time data. This is also the core advantage of the institution's ability to continue to provide customers with stable and implementable precious metal allocation ideas. In the future, we will continue to track the three core indicators of gold reserve allocations of various countries, changes in crude oil settlement currencies, and the U.S. fiscal deficit, and dynamically update the rhythm of the gold cycle layout and sub-tier support targets.