Posted on 03/15/2025 12:42:08 PM PDT by delta7
The Basel III Countdown Begins
Basel III will be implemented in the U.S. on July 1, 2025. The much needed change strengthens bank capital requirements, limits leverage, and increases liquidity standards to reduce financial risk and enhance banking system stability. A significant part of that involves restoration of Gold to its status as Tier 1 capital reserved for the world’s highest valued collateral. What follows is an analysis and explanation of the scramble to repatriate both Gold and Silver by American banks as that deadline approaches. 1. Repatriation: Quiet Additions to the U.S. Balance Sheet
The gold being repatriated now isn’t just sitting idle. A significant portion is being added—or more accurately, restored—to the U.S. balance sheet.
Basel Iii Banks Need Gold 05
H/T Ronan Manly
2. The Gold Wasn’t Sold—But It Was Loaned, Then Shorted
The U.S. Treasury never sold this gold outright. That would have been a constitutional violation, as gold can only be sold to retire U.S. debt directly. Instead, in the 1990s, the gold was loaned out to bullion banks under a perpetual rolling structure. These banks then hedged it through carry trades, profiting off borrowed gold.
Who was behind this? Look no further than Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. The Fed facilitated it, the Treasury allowed it, and the bullion banks executed it. In some cases, what now sits in place of actual gold are IOUs issued by those same banks.
3. Why It Happened: Monetizing Gold While Keeping Prices Down
At the time, the rationale was simple:
The Fed got to monetize gold by loaning reserves, earning a small return.
Gold prices remained suppressed, preventing inflation fears from spiking (a lesson Greenspan learned from Volcker’s battles).
Bullion banks used the gold for leveraged carry trades, compounding their profits.
No laws were broken. But in the process, a critical asset tied to American sovereignty was placed in the hands of private banks—banks that could, and eventually would, default.
This gold leasing and carry trade structure went on for decades. The chart further down illustrates just how long.
4. Fast Forward to Today: A Balance Sheet Reckoning
For reasons still unclear, the U.S. has decided to clean up its balance sheet. That means some of those IOUs have been called in.
The problem? Many bullion banks, complacent for years, now face a scramble. They have far more claims against gold than they have actual gold. And with IOUs being recalled, they’re being forced to cover their positions—at any cost.
Why is the U.S. doing this now?
Fear of BRICS gold purchases?
A need to consolidate assets for monetization, as Treasury Secretary Bessent has hinted?
A preparation to create a gold-backed bond-type instrument for international dealings?
Regardless of the reason, the underlying reality is the same: If everyone else is securing gold, the U.S. needs gold too. The bullion banks, caught in the middle, are paying the price.
5. From Greed to Fear: The Shift in Bullion Bank Behavior
Over the last two years, bullion banks have gone from aggressively shorting gold to desperately covering their positions.
Bullion Banks Covering shorts On All Time Highs…
Before March 2023: They played the usual game—selling high, buying low, profiting from hedge funds scrambling in and out of bullish positions.
Post-December 2023: They started covering shorts more aggressively but still maintained some patience in their purchases, keeping gold prices elevated but controlled.
Post Trump’s Inauguration: The game changed.
Banks go from booking profits to locking in losses in 2 years…
Basel Iii Banks Need Gold 06
At that point, bullion banks began urgently covering shorts, not to profit but to survive. They started locking in losses, breaking even at best, often losing money outright. The dark blue arrows in the attached charts highlight this shift.
The turning point came in 2022 (see OCC Bar chart) when JPMorgan, Citibank, and others were forced to disclose their derivative books in compliance with Basel III. But the cracks had been forming for years.
6. Basel III: The Countdown to Gold-Backed Reality
Basel III, which started in 2009 after the Global Financial Crisis, was delayed repeatedly due to EU crises (GREXIT 2011, BREXIT 2016, etc.). Now, it’s scheduled for full implementation in the U.S. in July 2025—and current bullion bank behavior suggests that deadline will hold.
This is why gold is flowing back into the U.S. If banks can’t reclaim their encumbered gold in time, they’ll be forced to continue covering shorts in a rallying market. Everyone already knows there’s a problem. If this continues without government intervention, it could get ugly.
And if gold is the metaphorical gun you have to keep your financials safe, silver is the bullets.
Bullion banks haven’t even begun to hedge their silver shorts yet.
Stay tuned.
It’s complicated though - because investments are denominated in dollars. The underlying unit of account. Even at the roughly 2% monetary inflation “target rate” the purchasing power of the currency is cut in half after 20 years. That’s insane, and it’s much worse than that. It’s also retarded to compare investments against a currency.
WHAT IF, instead of rapidly depreciating currency units your investment returns were denominated in a fixed quantity gold? Up 42x would look REALLY good, wouldn’t it?
Ah, I said “in the ground.” Russia just found a huge deposit in central Russia. It has to be mined and refined. But it will rival the largest finds in the past 50 years.
From X…,
“ Russia discovers largest gold field since 1991
The discovery of more than 100 tons of gold has been confirmed at the Sovinoye gold mine in the easternmost Russian federal entity of Chukotka. It is the largest field found since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
The information was revealed by a mining division of the Russian state corporation Rosatom, which said in a statement that drilling was carried out year-round in conditions of continuous permafrost.
“Over the past three years, 123 wells with a total length of more than 32 km have been drilled. All prospecting, topographic-geodetic, geological-geochemical and geophysical work has been completed,” according to the company.
The Sovinoye mine’s annual output is expected to stand at three tons of gold starting from 2029, the company said.”
The gold standard was dumped so gov’ts and the well connected could profit from and as your money lost value - year after year. This continues to this day.
And the value wasn’t actually “lost.” Little by little, its worth was transferred from you to them.
Trump has got to devalue/debase the US$, a lot. Since the price of gold usually moves inversely to the US$, I would think it’s best to get our physical gold home before the price really goes up and a lot of entities worldwide are going to be holding the proverbial bag of poop when they have to cover their loans/shorts at much higher prices than $3,000 oz.
Imperial Russia had , at one time, the largest gold holdings in the world. It all disappeared ( amounts unknown) but this recent article from 2023 states much was recently recovered. Unreported by western MSM.
A SECRET STASH OF TSAR’S GOLD WORTH BILLIONS WAS FOUND IN AN OLD RAIL TUNNEL NEAR LAKE BAIKAL
A secret stash of tsar’s gold worth billions was found in an old rail tunnel near Lake Baikal
Royal discovery made after 99-year-old code is broken by Siberian mathematics genius.
The former tunnel and at an undisclosed location in the Irkutsk region is today under the protection of the Russian national guard after the sensational discovery exactly a century after Tsar Nicholas II was deposed.
Rail carriages packed with gold bullion bearing the Romanov insignia along with ‘other treasures’ – in the possession of anti-Bolshevik forces as they retreated from the Red Army after the Russian Revolution – were hidden in 1918, according to sources quoted by multiple Russian news agencies.
At least one ‘crown once worn by the last Russian emperor’ is in the collection, it was reported early today.
Unlike last year’s claim of Nazi gold hidden in Poland, today’s report is ‘genuine and verified by competent state organs’ under direct Kremlin orders, said a source close to the discovery.
A formal statement is due around noon in Moscow on Saturday when the first pictures of the gold will be revealed to the world’s media.
The first consignments will be moved to the Russian Central Bank within hours. The treasure has been claimed already by the Russian state in a closed-door court case beginning at 00.01 on Saturday in Irkutsk under tight security.
*The stash ‘more than compensates for the cost of sanctions imposed by Western governments’, said an informed insider early today.*
The location of the gold was discovered after a secret code giving the coordinates of the location in the Irkutsk region – originally found deep in the Stalin era – was cracked by a 21-year-old mathematics protege who studies in Tomsk.
The document was seized from a Kolchak aide in 1919 and has lain for years in a Russian national archive in Moscow.
Over the decades, experts have failed to understand the bizarre instructions written in Russian, French, and English.
‘It was simple once I understood the importance of the numbers 1 and 4 and their complex interrelationship,’ said the student in an interview with TASS news agency.
The mathematics genius, who has not been named because he is also a ‘hacking maestro’ suspected by the FBI of involvement in penetrating Hillary Clinton’s emails, took less than one hour to crack the decades-old formula designed to inform royalists the location of the treasure.
Since the defeat of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, leader of the White Russian forces, there has been speculation about the tsar’s gold, and where it was stashed.
In the months leading up to July 1918, when abdicated ruler Nicholas II and his family were shot on Lenin’s orders, it is estimated that * 73% of the world’s largest gold reserves were held in Kazan, * a city on the Volga River, before most was shifted further east into Siberia.….
Hillary Clinton’s emails...?! lol
Ok, I’ll bite. How much gold equals $Billions?
Exactly why the ENTIRE world’s Central Banks are buying historic amounts of Gold. The Bank of International Settlements ( entity responsible for all financial settlements in the world) declared Gold a Tier One Asset.
Their Basel III Accord stated to be fully instated by July 2025. Gold is more important than any other time in history…..they know what’s coming….
Is ETN an individual stock or a fund?
Incidentally I read recently that Domino’s pizza has gained more since it’s IPO, than Google.
The US has combined reserves of abount 11,000 tonnes.
Russia, about 14,000.
Russia is plus 3000. That is only $288 billion.
That barely makes up for what they have lost in Ukraine.
Russia is corrupt. The mining is destroying their country and Putin and the oligarchs skim off their share.
Stock. Eaton
“WHAT IF, instead of rapidly depreciating currency units your investment returns were denominated in a fixed quantity gold? Up 42x would look REALLY good, wouldn’t it?”
What if you put some Apple stock into a Roth IRA 30 years ago? Roth gains are tax free.
My wife did. Less than $1000 but her boss bought much more.
A $1,000 investment in Apple stock on February 4, 1997, would be worth $1,343,269 today.
“WHAT IF, instead of rapidly depreciating currency units your investment returns were denominated in a fixed quantity gold? Up 42x would look REALLY good, wouldn’t it?”
What if you put some Apple stock into a Roth IRA 30 years ago? Roth gains are tax free.
My wife did. Less than $1000 but her boss bought much more.
A $1,000 investment in Apple stock on February 4, 1997, would be worth $1,343,269 today.
I would think it’s best to get our physical gold home before the price really goes up
—————
In the month of February, the COMEX / LBMA records show a whopping 2,000 TONS was shipped into the US….something is up.
“something is up.”
Tariffs
I'm pretty familiar with the Constitution, but you've got me here.
Help me out. Where do you find this in the Constitution?
“The Sovinoye mine’s annual output is expected to stand at three tons of gold starting from 2029, the company said.”
The Nevada Mines produce over 50 tonnes annually.
“Russia just found a huge deposit in central Russia. It has to be mined and refined. But it will rival the largest finds in the past 50 years.”
LOL! Last year China found one 10x that.
“A SECRET STASH OF TSAR’S GOLD WORTH BILLIONS WAS FOUND IN AN OLD RAIL TUNNEL NEAR LAKE BAIKAL”
GEEZ ...
Once again Armstrong/Delta7 posts garbage. He cites a 2023 date but the same “news” surfaced in 2017 and was debunked then.
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