China Added Gold 22 Months Straight, the Dark Logic Behind It | Cory Klippsten

Cory Klippsten contrasts gold’s physical visibility and historically centralized storage with Bitcoin’s ability to cross borders via a passphrase, and argues that government ownership—alongside Washington’s roughly 325,000 seized Bitcoin—could make Bitcoin more palatable to governments. He says the risk of a crackdown that makes self-custody illegal has declined but could rise again, and that such a move would push Bitcoin into black markets and other jurisdictions rather than eliminate it.

Klippsten distinguishes Bitcoin from non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies, which he says depend on companies, human-managed road maps, and infrastructure such as AWS and may need Washington’s permission. He describes Bitcoin’s proof of work as miners expending electricity to compete for block rewards every 10 minutes.

China reported 2,387 tons of gold reserves in August after adding about 20 tons, and it is expanding gold access through an insurer pilot, ETFs, and Shanghai–Hong Kong settlement pathways. Klippsten frames gold, land, and Bitcoin as hard-asset examples amid debt-backed fiat currencies, while saying his research found insufficient evidence that China was creating a new kind of gold standard.

Klippsten attributes upward pressure on bond yields and falling bond prices to several factors, including Japan, where government bond yields above 3% are encouraging domestic investors to keep capital at home and raising the cost of capital elsewhere. Against that backdrop, the host reported a weak quarter for bonds and a roughly 43% rise in Bitcoin, its best quarter since early 2024.