A Stablecoin Issuer Bought More Gold Last Year Than Any Central Bank

Published: 08-25-2026, 10:13 am

Every trading desk in the world is waiting for one sentence out of Wyoming this week. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has published an agenda about something else entirely. 

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City hosts its annual economic policy symposium at Jackson Hole. It runs from Thursday, August 27 to Saturday, August 29, 2026. New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh gives his first keynote there on the Friday morning. Markets want to know whether the hiking cycle is paused or finished. That is a fair question. However, it is not the question on the programme. 

Key takeaways 

• Jackson Hole’s 2026 theme is payments and financial innovation, not the level of rates. 

• The European Central Bank, in its June 2, 2026 report, put gold at 27% of total official foreign reserves at end-2025, ahead of US Treasuries at 22%. 

• That crossover is mostly price. Repriced at end-2023 gold prices, gold falls to 16% and Treasuries lead at 26%. 

• Tether bought more than 100 tonnes of gold in 2025, more than any central bank did. 

What is the Fed actually discussing at Jackson Hole? 

The topic this year is “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy,” and that title is doing real work. Roughly 120 central bankers, policymakers and economists from more than 70 countries attend. Furthermore, the Kansas City Fed selects them based on the year’s theme. So the theme is not decoration. Rather, it signals what the institution thinks matters now. 

The detailed programme is not public yet, so nobody knows which papers land. The subject is clear enough regardless. Who is allowed to issue dollars. What rails those dollars settle on. Whether privately issued digital money changes the way a policy rate reaches you.

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Why are central banks buying gold? 

Central banks buy gold because it carries no issuer, not because they expect a particular inflation print. The European Central Bank made that measurable on June 2, 2026. Its annual report on the international role of the euro put gold at 27% of total official foreign reserves at end-2025. That share overtook US Treasuries at 22% and the euro at 15%. 

Now the honest part, which the ECB puts in the same passage. That shift largely reflects valuation effects. Gold’s price climbed roughly 60% in 2025 and 30% in 2024. Consequently, a rising price mechanically lifts gold’s share of the pile. Recalculate the same holdings at end-2023 gold prices and gold’s share drops to 16%. That is level with the euro. Meanwhile, Treasuries stay well ahead at 26%. 

So this is accumulation plus revaluation, not a stampede out of the dollar. The ECB is also blunt about gold’s drawbacks as a reserve asset. The price is volatile. It pays no interest. Physical metal costs money to store. Moreover, its supply does not stretch on demand when the world suddenly wants liquidity. 

One detail in that report ties both halves together. Poland was the largest official-sector buyer of gold in 2025, at around 100 tonnes. Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, bought more than that. In other words, the company whose entire product is a digital dollar acquired more gold last year than any central bank did. 

Do faster dollars mean fewer dollars? 

No, and that distinction is the whole mechanism. The same June 2026 ECB report put stablecoin capitalisation above $300 billion at the end of 2025. That is half again as much as a year earlier. Almost all of it is pegged to dollar-denominated assets. Therefore the innovation on the Jackson Hole agenda extends the dollar’s reach. It does not change how many dollars exist. 

The ECB’s own researchers go further than that. Their work finds that stablecoin adoption weakens and complicates the transmission of monetary policy. It makes policy less effective and less predictable. That is precisely why a payments conference is a monetary policy conference. 

Keep the scale honest, though. The ECB cites estimates that only about $400 billion of stablecoin retail payments settle annually. By comparison, global cross-border retail transactions run to roughly $44 trillion. The new rails are real. They are also early. 

Can a Fed chair change gold’s case? 

Some in the market think Warsh could say something gold-negative this week. Nobody knows. Anyone claiming to know the contents of an unpublished speech is guessing. 

What a chair can move is your opportunity cost. Hold gold and you give up a yield. Federal Reserve H.15 data put the ten-year inflation-indexed Treasury at 2.35% on August 20, 2026. So a bullion holder gives up roughly that much a year in real terms. Large speculators have been paying it anyway. CFTC Commitments of Traders data for August 18, 2026 show them net long about 222,000 gold contracts. That is up around 22% in three weeks. 

Paying a positive real carry to own an asset that yields nothing is not an inflation bet. Rather, it is a statement about the durability of the unit. 

For context, gold trades in the mid-$4,600s as of August 25, 2026. That sits roughly 17% below the record set on January 28, 2026. In other words, this is a recovery inside a drawdown, not a new peak. 

Here is the part a speech cannot reach. An ounce settles without a counterparty. It cannot be reissued, upgraded, frozen, or redeemed at somebody else’s discretion. Whatever the Fed concludes about payment rails, that property is not on the agenda. After all, it was never the Fed’s to grant. 

SOURCES
1. European Central Bank — The International Role of the Euro, June 2, 2026
2. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City — 2026 Economic Policy Symposium: Financial Innovation, Implications for Payments and Policy, August 27 to 29, 2026
3. Federal Reserve Board — H.15 Selected Interest Rates, August 20, 2026
4. Commodity Futures Trading Commission — Commitments of Traders, COMEX Gold, August 18, 2026
5. GoldSilver — Gold and Silver Price Charts, August 25, 2026

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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