Free Republic

Those who have stolen billions of dollars from American taxpayers attach little value to what is has been so easily obtained. Further, their thefts have weakened the American government, which tips the odds that the American government will collapse, and their trade of dollars for gold will be a winning one.However, if the massive thefts can be halted, then the number of market participants who have billions in cash to which they attach little value will shrink drastically.Recall that price is determined at the margin. It only requires a few market participants (technically only one), who are willing to pay...

Gold and silver prices are strongly up and both hit new record highs in early U.S. trading Monday. Risk aversion is significantly elevated in the marketplace to start the trading week, amid tumult in the Federal Reserve and civil unrest in Iran that are driving safe-haven demand to the precious metals markets. February gold was last up $98.30 at $4,599.30. March silver prices were up $4.849 at $84.205.

Türkiye will introduce a comprehensive digital tracking system for precious metals in April, effectively ending cash transactions in gold trading and requiring all purchases and sales at jewelry shops to be conducted through banks, credit cards or bank transfers Called the Precious Metal Tracking System (KMTS), the new framework has been developed by the Turkish State Mint within the Treasury and Finance Ministry. Under the new system, all gold sold in Türkiye, from one gram to one kilogram, will be required to carry an official Mint-issued banderol and certificate. Each banderol will include a unique serial number, allowing authorities to...

Chinese silver demand is on pause allowing prices to drift from all-time highs. Meanwhile, gold marches on towards a test of its post-Christmas highs. However, the physical silver shortage is what matters and will continue to drive prices. In gold, there is a dawning realisation that there must be something solid behind its bull market, with speculators returning to Comex. And those clever people behind Tether’s gold stablecoin have been ramping up their reserves buying a further 26 tonnes in 2025 Q4, making them larger holders than most central banks. Silver’s frenetic rush paused this week with dealers assessing its...

Live Science reports that two 2,300-year-old gold coins have been recovered from the Bärenfels bog in northern Switzerland by a pair of volunteers working with the local archaeology department, Archaeology Baselland. These Celtic coins imitated Greek gold staters minted during the reign of Philip II of Macedon (reigned 360–336 B.C.), and feature an image of the Greek god Apollo on one side and a two-horse chariot on the other. The Celts added a triple spiral known as a triskele, or triskelion, beneath the horses on the smaller coin's reverse. These gold coins, and the 34 silver coins that had previously...

Financed by JPMorgan, Jointly Owned by US DoD Under the plan, the U.S. Department of Defense will hold a 40% stake in the JPM Financed smelter joint-venture. GFN – WASHINGTON: Korea Zinc plans a $7.4 billion investment to construct a large-scale non-ferrous metals smelter in Clarksville, Tennessee, a project U.S. officials say will materially expand domestic critical minerals processing capacity and strengthen supply chain security.1 The project, known as the “U.S. Smelter,” is expected to require approximately $6.6 billion in capital expenditures, with total investment reaching $7.4 billion including financing costs. It is being developed in coordination with the U.S....

At first glance, gold’s higher price per ounce makes it seem like the obvious choice for miners. However, a closer look at production costs and environmental impact reveals why silver remains such an attractive metal to extract. This graphic, sponsored by Vizsla Silver Corp., uses data from Thunder Said Energy, AG Metals, and Metals Focus Gold Mine Cost Service to compare the costs of mining silver vs. gold. Gold mining is not only significantly more energy-intensive than silver mining but also produces many more emissions because of the increased energy intensity.

2025 was an extraordinary year for precious metals. Gold, silver, and platinum each outperformed other asset classes, including equities, bitcoin (2024’s best performer), and even indexes tracking artificial intelligence (AI)—one of 2025’s most popular investment themes.Silver and platinum rose by approximately 170 percent in 2025, while gold returned a highly respectable 73 percent.Among AI stocks, only Palantir outperformed gold.Why such stellar performance from assets once derided by governments as “barbarous relics” and shunned by investors as outdated?The reason I wrote at the start of last year that we should “expect gold to shine in 2025” was because global conditions had...

They look like coins. They circulated like money. Yet the U.S. Mint never meant them to be coins at all. In the mid-1940s, the United States Mint struck one of the most unusual forms of American gold ever produced: anonymous gold disks made not for collectors or commerce, but to pay oil royalties to Saudi Arabia. These pieces sit at the crossroads of geopolitics, bullion, and numismatic mystery, and remain among the most counterfeited U.S.-minted gold items today. Saudi Arabia Oil Fields Unlike commemoratives or circulating coinage, these disks emerged from a quiet diplomatic crisis. Saudi Arabia demanded gold. The...

Silver’s market value has reached about $4.04 trillion, slightly higher than Apple’s $4.02 trillion at the close of trading on Wall Street on Tuesday. Silvetr prices kept climbing in global markets, with futures rising above $71 an ounce. This has taken silver’s gains this year to almost 150%, making it world’s third most valuable asset, moving ahead of Apple Inc, the CNBC reported. The top two spots of most valued assets globally are now held by Gold and Nvidia. Silver market capitalisation reaches $4.4 trillion. Silver’s market value has reached about $4.04 trillion, slightly higher than Apple’s $4.02 trillion at...

Banks and traders are expanding their precious metals desks and logistics capabilities as they race to capitalise on gold's historic rally this year, which has suddenly made the sleepy world of bullion trading and vaulting one of the most profitable areas in finance. The blistering rally in gold and silver prices in 2025 has had another burst of energy in recent days, powered by simmering geopolitical tension between the U.S. and Venezuela, as well as bets of US interest rate cuts. Both precious metals hit record-high prices Wednesday. The price of gold hit $4,500 a troy ounce for the first...

Without a doubt, the Chinese central bank (PBoC) is still the leading single entity that is driving up the gold price to record highs, year-to-date by more than 55 percent. In the third quarter of 2025, the PBoC’s gold purchases (reported and unreported) accounted for 118 tonnes, up 39% MoM and 55% YoY, according to my long-time methodology1 (now copied by Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, The Washington Post, TIME magazine, Financial Times, Financiele Dagblad, and El País, to name a few). Chart 1. Reported central bank gold buying versus estimates by the World Gold Council on central bank gold buying...

How did more than $3 million in Civil War era gold coins end up in a farm field, somewhere in Kentucky? Everyone from the Washington Post to USA Today to major TV news networks covered this story last summer when it first broke, but in this segment you'll hear for the first time from the Lexington coin dealer who brokered the sale of the coins when he was first approached by the farmer who literally stumbled upon them. You'll also hear from a UK professor about why she thinks the coins were buried in the first place, and from some...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has finally released its hotly-anticipated “gold card” allowing deep-pocketed foreigners to purchase US visas. Trump told reporters at the White House that it would function “somewhat like a green card” letting foreigners become instantly eligible for permanent residency status to work in America. Individuals have to pay $1 million to US Treasury coffers, while companies will have to fork over $2 million to keep employees. The Department of Homeland Security will conduct a background check on all applicants to make sure they are qualified. After five years, any gold card-carrying permanent resident can apply for...

A lost 16th-century ship buried deep in a Namibian desert has stunned archaeologists with a treasure haul that rewrites the story of early global trade. In Namibia’s remote Sperrgebiet—a name that translates from German as “forbidden zone”—miners looking for diamonds stumbled upon something far more valuable: the buried wreck of a 16th-century Portuguese carrack, laden with gold, ivory, and copper. Preserved beneath the hyper-arid sands of the Namib Desert, the ship, identified as the Bom Jesus, disappeared in 1533 while en route to India. Discovered in 2008 within a high-security mining concession near Oranjemund, the site quickly drew attention from...

JP Morgan moved its entire Gold trading desk from New York to Singapore LAST THURSDAY!!! What is going on???

New York futures out of action probably doesn’t help. But silver hits new highs in volatile conditions. In this report, we look at the factors driving gold and silver higher still. During Thanksgiving week (US markets closed on Thursday) the bullish running has been made in Asia. In European trade this morning, gold was $4,173, up $90 from last Friday’s close. Silver at $53.85, up $3.87 on the same time scale was making the running. Overnight in Shanghai, spot silver spiked as high as $55.13 surpassing previous highs, and the February future closed at $56. The situation is complicated by...

Kitco News) - Central bank gold purchases and investment demand have been two key factors driving gold prices to record highs this year, but one investment firm is looking at another segment of the gold market that is starting to attract significant attention. For years, many analysts have expected tokenized gold to be the next evolution in the precious metals space, and it appears its time has come, as Tether Limited, the leader in cryptocurrency stablecoins, has become a major player in the sector. Fahad Tariq and Andrew Moss, equity analysts at Jefferies, recently published a report on Tether’s growing...

Trading gradually resumed after coming to a standstill on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Friday, as a cooling issue at one of its data centers impacted traders across the globe.

Governments assume they can print as much currency as they like and it will be accepted by force. However, the history of fiat currencies is always the same: first governments exceed their credit limits, then ignore all the warning signs and finally see the currency collapse. Today, we are living the decline of developed economies’ fiat currencies in real time. The global reserve system is slowly but decisively diversifying away from a pure fiat currency anchor towards a mixed regime where gold plays the dominant role, not fiat currencies. IMF COFER data show that, while the US dollar still dominates,...