Silver Rises Over 120% YTD 
Published: 08-25-2026, 10:05 am
Key Takeaways
- After February 2022, Western governments immobilised roughly $300 billion of Russian central bank reserves. Ownership never changed hands, but access did. [Council on Foreign Relations]
- The majority of those reserves sat in Europe, not the United States. About €210 billion was immobilised across the EU, with the bulk of it at a single Belgian custodian, while Washington froze only around $5 billion directly. [Euronews] [Council on Foreign Relations]
- Russia’s gold and yuan holdings were never at risk. That detail explains most of what has happened since. [Council on Foreign Relations]
- China’s Treasury holdings peaked at $1,316.7 billion in November 2013. By June 2026 they stood at $633.4 billion, a decline of roughly 52%. [US Treasury]
- Meanwhile the People’s Bank of China has bought gold for 21 consecutive months, reaching about 2,366 tonnes. [People’s Bank of China via China Daily]
Rick Rule has a blunt read on why China buying gold instead of Treasuries became official policy rather than a trade. In a new conversation with Maggie Lake, the founder of Rule Investment Media argues that Beijing did not run a spreadsheet and conclude gold would outperform. Instead, it watched what happened to somebody else’s reserves and drew a conclusion about its own.
His broader thesis is that the commodity bull market rests on decades of systemic underinvestment rather than on politics. Yet the gold portion of his argument turns on a single 2022 decision, and on what that decision revealed to every finance ministry watching.
What Actually Happened to Russia’s Reserves?
Rule puts it in stark terms. He says the US government took $300 billion of Russian assets held in Treasury securities. That move, he argues, taught every government with a policy dispute with Washington a lesson.
The lesson holds. The mechanics, however, deserve precision, because the details matter for anyone trying to reason about what comes next.
First, the reserves were immobilised rather than seized. Ownership never transferred, and the legal fight over whether it ever can has run for years. [CEPR]
Second, this was not primarily an American action. About €210 billion of the total was immobilised inside the EU, and most of that sits at Euroclear, a securities depository in Belgium. [Euronews] By contrast, the United States froze only around $5 billion directly. Even inside the Euroclear portfolio, dollar-denominated holdings accounted for roughly 7%. [Council on Foreign Relations]
Third, and most importantly for this story, one part of Russia’s reserves was never exposed at all. Its gold and yuan holdings sat outside the reach of the freeze entirely. [Council on Foreign Relations]
So the accurate version is narrower than Rule’s phrasing, but it points the same direction. A coordinated group of governments demonstrated that reserve assets held inside somebody else’s financial system are conditional. Consequently, every reserve manager had to reprice a risk they had previously treated as zero.
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Why Did One Decision Change How Governments Think?
Because it converted a theoretical risk into an observed event.
Before 2022, the idea that a major economy’s reserves could be switched off was a hypothetical raised mainly by sound-money analysts. Afterwards, it was a documented precedent with a dollar figure attached.
Rule’s argument is that Beijing then asked itself a simple question about trust, and that the answer came back negative. As he frames it, Chinese officials concluded that “the sanctity of their savings was more important than their political consideration.”
That last phrase carries the weight. Rule’s point is not that China stopped liking the yield on Treasuries. Rather, it is that China accepted a genuinely worse position on other priorities in order to protect the integrity of its savings. What Beijing was willing to trade away, and why that trade was expensive, is the part of the conversation worth hearing in his own words.
How Much Has China Really Cut Its Treasury Holdings?
The Treasury’s own data answers this cleanly.
China’s holdings peaked at $1,316.7 billion in November 2013. At the end of June 2026 they stood at $633.4 billion, the most recent figure Treasury has published. That is a decline of roughly 52% from the peak. [US Treasury]
Two further details sharpen the picture. Holdings have remained below $1 trillion continuously since April 2022, which is the period the freeze took effect. In addition, China now sits third among foreign holders, behind Japan at $1,116.7 billion and the United Kingdom at $939.9 billion. Notably, the United Kingdom has been adding while China has been trimming. [US Treasury]
One caveat belongs here. Analysts have long argued that official figures understate China’s true exposure. Holdings routed through custodial centres get attributed to the country of custody, not the beneficial owner. Therefore the direction of travel is more reliable than any single month’s level.
Why Does Gold Solve a Problem Treasuries Cannot?
This is the mechanism, and it is simpler than the geopolitics around it.
A Treasury security is a claim on another government, settled through financial infrastructure that government influences. Its value depends on both the issuer’s solvency and the holder’s continued permission to use it. As 2022 showed, that second condition is not guaranteed.
Physical gold held in your own vaults carries no counterparty. There is no issuer to default, no custodian to instruct, and no clearinghouse to freeze. For a reserve manager worried specifically about access rather than return, that difference is the entire point.
The buying pattern reflects that logic. The People’s Bank of China added gold for a 21st consecutive month through July 2026, lifting holdings to 76.08 million ounces, or roughly 2,366 tonnes. July’s addition of about 19.9 tonnes was the largest monthly percentage increase since October 2023. [People’s Bank of China via China Daily]
Nor is China alone. Central bank buying rebounded to 289 tonnes in the second quarter of 2026, according to World Gold Council research. That is a 62% rise year on year, and a record for any second quarter. [World Gold Council]
One honest caveat belongs beside that number. First-half buying totalled 345 tonnes, the weakest in four years, because Turkey, Russia and Azerbaijan were net sellers and the first quarter was revised down to 57 tonnes. [World Gold Council] So the trend is uneven rather than uniform. The direction still holds, and the World Gold Council expects another strong year, though probably below 2025.
Notably, this buying continued through a difficult stretch for the price. Gold set its record at $5,589.38 on 28 January 2026, then fell sharply before recovering. Spot gold trades near $4,610 and silver near $67.50 in intraday trading on 25 August 2026. [goldsilver.com/price-charts/] Central banks kept accumulating anyway, which tells you the purchases are structural rather than tactical.
What Should Individual Investors Take From This?
The same reasoning that applies to a central bank applies, at smaller scale, to a household.
Most portfolio risk gets discussed in terms of price. Will this asset go up or down? However, the risk that reserve managers repriced in 2022 was different. It was access risk, meaning the possibility that an asset remains valuable while becoming unusable to you.
Gold’s function in that specific scenario is not appreciation. It is the absence of a gatekeeper. That is why the world’s most sophisticated reserve managers keep buying it during price declines, and it is why the wealth-preservation case rests on structure rather than on forecasts.
Rule takes this further in the interview, and his conclusion is more contrarian than most gold commentary. He argues that a small group of investors genuinely does not need to own gold at all, and he uses Warren Buffett’s 1970s track record to explain who qualifies. He also names the honest self-assessment that decides which group you belong to.
That section is worth watching in full. So is his case for why the AI build-out is a secondary factor rather than the driver. He also lays out what he expects from copper, oil and uranium over the next five years.
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People Also Ask
No. The reserves were immobilised, which restricts access without transferring ownership. Legal debate over whether they can be used continues. Most of the assets are held in European jurisdictions rather than American ones. [CEPR] [European Parliament]
Estimates centre on roughly $300 billion across all jurisdictions. About €210 billion of that is immobilised inside the EU, with the bulk held at Euroclear in Belgium. The United States froze approximately $5 billion directly. [Euronews] [Council on Foreign Relations]
Yes. The People’s Bank of China extended its buying streak to 21 consecutive months through July 2026, reaching about 2,366 tonnes. [People’s Bank of China via China Daily]
Because the purchase is a reserve-composition decision rather than a market call. Gold carries no counterparty and no issuer, so it addresses access risk regardless of near-term price. Price weakness lowers the cost of closing an allocation gap.
Not in any near term. The dollar remains the dominant reserve currency by a wide margin. What the data shows is diversification at the margin, driven by risk management rather than by a wholesale shift
Watch the Full Conversation
Rick Rule’s full conversation with Maggie Lake goes well beyond gold. He covers the thirty-year underinvestment thesis behind copper and oil. He explains why energy security returned as a national concern for the first time since 1973. Finally, he names who he believes does not need to own gold at all.
SOURCES
1. Council on Foreign Relations — How to Use Russia’s Frozen Assets
2. US Department of the Treasury — TIC Table 5, Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities
3. China Daily — PBOC Extends Gold-Buying Streak to 21 Months as Forex Reserves Rise
4. CEPR — Euroclear and the Geopolitics of Immobilised Russian Assets
5. European Parliament — Confiscation of Immobilised Russian Sovereign Assets
6. Euronews — Russian Central Bank Sues EU Over Immobilised Assets
7. World Gold Council — Gold Demand Trends Q2 2026, Central Banks
8. GoldSilver — Live Gold and Silver Price Charts
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.
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