Spot gold extended its rally on Friday, climbing nearly 2% to $4,606.99 an ounce, adding to a shift that has already reshaped how the world's central banks hold their reserves. Gold now accounts for 26.3% of global central bank reserves versus 20.2% for U.S. Treasuries, the first time gold has outweighed Treasuries in that role since 1996.
The milestone isn't a one-day fluke. By the end of 2025, gold's share of global reserves had already climbed to 27% from 20% a year earlier, while Treasuries slipped to 22% from 25% over the same period, according to central bank data — meaning this week's price action is extending a shift that has been building for more than a year rather than starting one.
Central banks say the buying isn't done
The World Gold Council's 2026 Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey, which drew 76 responses — the highest participation since the survey began nine years ago — found that 89% of reserve managers expect global central bank gold holdings to keep rising over the next 12 months, and a record 45% expect their own institution's reserves to increase. Central banks have bought an average of 1,000 tonnes of gold annually over the past four years, roughly double the 500-tonne average of the prior decade, with China, Poland, Turkey and India among the most consistent buyers.
The same debt anxiety is pushing money toward Bitcoin
The rotation out of government debt and into hard assets isn't confined to central banks. Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio pointed to the same dynamic this week, warning that recent moves in the Treasury market reflect the late stage of a "Big Debt Cycle" and that a U.S. debt crisis could arrive "in three years, give or take two." Dalio recommends holding 10% to 15% of a portfolio in gold and "a bit" of Bitcoin as a hedge — a framing that puts Bitcoin's institutional accumulation this week, detailed in Bitcoin's Thin Supply Above $78K Opens Path to $84,569 Target, in the same category of trade as central-bank gold buying rather than a separate, unrelated story.
Related: Pantera Capital: 'Smart Money' Positioning Is Reversing Bullish on Bitcoin
What would change the picture
With 84% of surveyed central banks expecting gold to hold an even higher share of reserves five years from now, and 74% expecting the dollar's share of reserves broadly to decline, the structural case for gold looks durable barring a sharp reversal in the fiscal and geopolitical pressures driving it. The open question is whether Bitcoin, increasingly framed by allocators like Dalio and Pantera Capital's Cosmo Jiang as a smaller-scale version of the same hedge, ends up riding the same institutional wave gold has already captured.
