For years, gold was the asset nobody wanted to talk about. It sat there quietly while stocks and real estate continued to rip. Gold was for pessimists. For doomsayers and perma-bears.
And then suddenly… gold didn’t just wake up. It launched.

As of mid-December 2025, spot gold is trading around $4,300–$4,400 an ounce, depending on the market, marking a gain of roughly 60% over the past year and pushing decisively into record territory.

The obvious question is: why now?

The short answer is that gold isn’t reacting to one thing. It’s responding to a stacking of pressures that have been quietly building for years and are now impossible to ignore.
Start with central banks.

For the better part of the last decade, central banks were net sellers or indifferent holders of gold. That changed dramatically after 2022. According to the World Gold Council, central banks have been buying gold at more than double the pace of the pre-COVID years, and 2025 continues that trend, with hundreds of tonnes added to reserves year-to-date.

These aren’t hedge funds chasing momentum. These are monetary authorities making deliberate, strategic decisions about what they trust to hold value.

Why would central banks suddenly want more gold? Because geopolitics has re-entered the chat.

We now live in a world where reserves can be frozen, payment systems can be weaponized, and “risk-free” assets depend heavily on political alignment.

The World Bank has been explicit that rising geopolitical tensions and global uncertainty are key drivers of gold’s surge this year. When trust in the global order erodes, gold benefits.

At the same time, the U.S. dollar devaluation thesis is no longer fringe thinking. It is reality.
Gold is priced in dollars, and when real yields fall and the dollar weakens, gold historically performs well. That dynamic is playing out again.

Reuters has repeatedly pointed to a softer dollar and declining Treasury yields as near-term tailwinds for gold’s rally . Bank of America’s research echoes this relationship, emphasizing gold’s inverse correlation to the dollar and the growing desire among nations to diversify away from dollar-centric reserves .

In other words, gold isn’t just going up because people are scared. It’s going up because confidence in fiat discipline is eroding, slowly but persistently.

So…Is gold still a buy or did we miss it?

The truth is, both answers can be correct. Yes, gold is expensive relative to where it was a year ago. You don’t go up 60% without pulling future returns forward. But what makes this cycle different is that many of the buyers driving demand are price-insensitive.

Central banks don’t care if gold is up 20% or down 10% in a quarter. They care about long-term reserve integrity. That’s why major institutions aren’t dismissing the move as a blow-off. Goldman Sachs has cited sustained central-bank demand and the potential for further ETF inflows as supportive of higher prices.

J.P. Morgan continues to frame gold as a beneficiary of geopolitical instability and monetary uncertainty, and Bank of America is projecting prices as high as $5,000 an ounce into 2026.

Of course, nothing goes up in a straight line. A shift toward tighter monetary policy or a sudden easing of global tensions could cool enthusiasm.

Understand though, that gold’s breakout isn’t just about gold. There is a larger message that should be taken away from all of this. Hard money has come back into favor. Gold is the original hard asset. It’s scarce, politically neutral, and has thousands of years of monetary credibility. But it’s also heavy, difficult to move, and awkward in a digital world.

Bitcoin exists on the same philosophical axis.

Both gold and Bitcoin are reactions to the same problem: expanding debt, monetary dilution, and declining confidence in centralized control. Gold is the conservative expression of that view. Bitcoin is the aggressive one.

Today, Bitcoin trades around $86,000, still volatile, still controversial, still misunderstood. But if gold’s surge is signaling a regime shift toward hard assets, then Bitcoin may simply be earlier in that adoption curve.

In other words, gold may be leading the parade.

And if history is any guide, when institutions start moving into the oldest form of sound money, they eventually begin exploring the newest.

That’s the signal worth paying attention to. So this week, I interview Dana Samuelson, an old friend of the show and an expert in everything gold and hard money.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.

Gold isn’t reacting to one thing, it’s actually responding to a stacking, uh, pressures, uh, that have been quietly building for years and, and really right now are impossible to ignore.

Welcome, everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast coming to you. From Montecito, California and today. Uh, before we begin, just a quick reminder. Uh, there is a, uh, website associated with this podcast called wealth formula.com. And, uh, that’s where you go to get deeply more deeply integrated into this community, including our accredited investor club, AKA investor club for you to join.

And, uh, once you get onboarded, all you do is you, you have an opportunity to see private deal flow, uh, that, uh, is not available to the general public. If you are an accredited investor, meaning that you have, uh, make $200,000 per year or $300,000 per year, uh, for the last two years with the reasonable expectation of continuing to do so, or you have a million dollars outside of your personal residence, a net worth, then you are an accredited investor and.

All you need to do is sign up and join the club. Just go to wealth formula.com and sign up and get onboarded. Now, let’s talk a little bit about something that has been extraordinary this year. It’s gold. You know, for years, gold was the asset that nobody wanted to talk about. I mean, it sat there quietly.

Well, stocks and real estate continue to rip. Um. Gold really is really, you know, was for the pessimists. For the doomsayers and the perma bears. I mean, I, I gotta tell you, I kind of am was one of those people, right? And then suddenly gold didn’t just wake up. It, it totally launched, exploded in his mid-December 2025.

Spot Gold is trading around, I know, 4300, 4400 an ounce, depending on the market, gaining roughly 60% over the past year. Pushing decisively into record territory. Now the obvious question is why now? Well, the short answer is that gold isn’t reacting to one thing. It’s actually responding to a stacking, uh, pressures, uh, that have been quietly building for years and, and really right now are impossible to ignore.

And this is an interesting shift because. The thing is that in the old days, and I’m even talking about 15, 20 years ago, uh, you would look at gold as something that didn’t really go up when the stock market was doing well, right? It was kind of a reaction. It was a fear-based thing. It still is sort of a fear-based thing, but now it’s not just fear of, you know, whether the stock market’s gonna crash.

It’s fear of geopolitical concerns. That’s where the central banks come in, right? So for the better part of the last decade, central banks were net sellers. Or really indifferent of holders of, of gold, and that changed dramatically after 2022. So according to World Gold Council, central banks have been buying gold at more than double the pace of the pre COVID years.

And 2025 continued that trend with hundreds of tons, uh, added to reserves year to date Now. These are central banks. They’re not hedge funds chasing momentum, right? They’re monetary authorities and they’re making deliberate strategic decisions about what they trust to hold value. And why would central banks suddenly want more gold?

Well, because again, geopolitics has reentered that chat. We live in a world now where reserves can be frozen, right? Payment systems can be weaponized. Risk-free assets depend heavily on political alignment. Now of course, I’m talking about the United States when I’m mentioning all those things, right? Uh, how we can kind of just freeze assets of Russia and that kind of thing.

I’m not, uh, pro-Russia, I’m just pointing out the fact that. Countries don’t like it when you freeze their assets. Right? The World Bank, uh, has been explicit that rising geopolitical tensions and global uncertainty are the key drivers of gold surges this year. And when trust in the global Ory roads, of course that is now when gold benefits and at the same time, the US dollar devaluation thesis is no longer just kind of fringe thinking.

It’s reality. No one, no one even bothers to pretend that that’s not happening. So gold is, uh, of course, priced in dollars and when real yields fall, uh, and the dollar weakens gold historically performs well so that that dynamic is playing out again as well. In fact, Reuters has repeatedly pointed to a softer dollar and declining treasury yields as near term tailwinds for Gold’s Rally Bank of America.

Uh, their research shows, uh, this relationship emphasizing gold’s inverse correlation to the dollar and the growing desire among nations to diversify away from the dollar centric reserves. In other words, gold isn’t just going up because people are scared. It’s going up because confidence in the fiat discipline is eroding altogether slowly.

Persistently. So the question is, is go...