Since the start of the year, more than 600 tons of gold has been delivered through COMEX. That is 19,290,000 ounces. At $4,200 an ounce, that equals $81 billion of gold. Silver deliveries top 9,000 tons, or 290 million ounces; at $60 an ounce that is more than $17 billion. Together, roughly $100 billion in gold and silver has been delivered to COMEX this year.
What "delivery" actually means
Delivery does not mean the metal leaves COMEX. It goes to accounts there. In February, about 26 million ounces of silver stood for delivery - a small amount, since February is not a primary silver delivery month (the primary months are January, March, and May). Yet 39 million ounces got on trucks and left. That is roughly 160% of what the February deliveries alone explain, or 3 million pounds of silver worth $4 billion at the time.
In October so far, gold deliveries reached 1,150,000 ounces as of earlier in the week, worth $4,830,000,000 at $4,200. This repeats every month.
Metal sits in what are called eligible accounts. There are nine Brinks facilities; one is Brinks JFK, a COMEX facility. Silver 1,000-ounce bars held in that program are "eligible," meaning eligible to be registered. Registered bars are the ones that back the contracts. Eligible inventory is not the same as available registered inventory, and the delivery figures alone cannot name the buyer.
A common pushback: this is just banks trading back and forth. That does not hold up. When banks traded before, they used paper contracts - settling, rolling forward, cash settling, or simply leaving the trade. Now buyers want the actual warrant and the bar numbers. They want possession.
COMEX normally exists to offset risk. A farmer plants wheat in April and sells the forward crop to a baker who needs the flour. A gold producer sells forward output before pulling it from the ground. Both sides meet in the middle on price. Across an entire career, almost no one ever stood for delivery - less than 1% of contracts. Since Trump won the election, there have been 24 straight months of massive deliveries.
The Treasury theory
My belief: the one entity that could stand for this much metal and not move it is the US government, through the Treasury. If you move all the gold and silver out, people start asking what is going on. Leaving it on COMEX keeps it quiet. If the Treasury owns the metal, it is not worried about COMEX defaulting, and it keeps an arm's length from the open market while racing to accumulate.
Silver was classified a critical mineral in 2025 on the US Geological Survey list. Scott Bessent runs the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), which operates in the gold and silver market as part of its charter. If the president were told the ESF should stand for delivery, it could be done for national security without congressional approval. JP Morgan can trade directly for such accounts. Years ago, when Blythe Masters ran JP Morgan's trade desk and it was being investigated over its gold and silver buying, she said the bank does not buy it - it is for client accounts. The CME Group, which runs COMEX, says it works with central banks.
Almost to the day silver was classified a critical mineral, Executive Order 14241, "immediate measures to increase American mineral production," appeared. Its Section 2A explicitly names gold, along with potash and copper, as minerals covered. Gold is not on the USGS critical mineral list - that is silver - but the order reaches it anyway.
A legal framework that permits an action is not proof the Treasury has done it. These are facts that line up, and connecting them to a conclusion is a theory, not established evidence.
Tether as a possible proxy
The same pattern may run through Tether, which has bought more gold than anyone in the world except the central bank of Poland. Tether owns more gold than Australia, the third largest producer. In the second and third quarters of last year, it bought more gold than every central bank combined.
In the final six months of 2025, Tether added 53 tons of gold. That equals buying one 400-ounce gold bar, about $1.7 million, every single hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for six months. In 2026 it bought over 27 tons more, and now reports more than 146 tons of gold in reserves worth over $20 billion.
Where does the money come from? Tether is one of the largest holders of US treasuries, which it uses to back its stablecoins. Under the Genius Act, which takes effect in January, the interest on those treasuries is not transferable even though they back the stablecoins. Tether earns on the spread and movement of that money.
Is this the US or central bankers? The US government. Is Tether the US government? No - but it works with them very closely. My theory: Tether runs as a private sector proxy for the US government to accumulate gold. Look at the alignment - massive treasury holdings, massive physical gold buying, and growing ties to Washington through its CEO Boheiness and Trump's crypto circle. A year or two ago Tether was in trouble with the Justice Department; that went away, and now it works with the DOJ, has opened its back end, and helps pursue fraud and the Iranian National Guard. The buying is real, as are the COMEX deliveries. I cannot prove coordinated accumulation by the Treasury through banks or through Tether. Financial connections and reported reserves are not proof of government direction, and those reserve claims deserve scrutiny.
The crypto world has changed. The old market was libertarian - how do we become independent? The new one asks how to support the current infrastructure. Jordan, a former senior editor of cryptocurrencies at Kitco (where lead media person Michelle also came from), makes this point. When you judge a crypto now, you judge it by that.
Weak hands to strong hands
Sophisticated money is using paper market weakness to accumulate gold and silver, which misleads the public, the hedge funds, and the media. Watch what big money does, not what it says. The average investor is being frightened out of gold and silver while big players pocket the metal everyone else sells. This is not a collapse in demand. It is a massive transfer of ownership from weak hands to strong hands.
The suppression logic: knock down the paper price, use the money and the ability to short the market, and buy cheaply because you are late in the game and must accumulate to compete with the global south and China. China added 21 tons of gold to its reserves in September, its largest purchase in a couple of years and its largest accumulation in three years - 23 straight months of buying. This year China has bought over 1,000 tons that it admits to, likely much more, which alone is $160 billion. At this pace it will set an 11-year high for Chinese gold accumulation.
Silver got crushed in the first quarter of the year, yet China imported more silver than at any time in its history. Falling prices do not mean sophisticated buyers left. The divergence between a weak futures price and strong physical demand is the signal. Still, delivery data and import figures alone do not prove a coordinated plan to suppress prices or build a new monetary system.
The shadow price and the endgame
Is there a shadow price for gold and silver? If both had kept pace with money inflation, the price would be far higher, much like shadow stats on inflation. What I really believe: the government will let gold and silver go much, much higher - but not until it is done accumulating. Until it is ready.
This benefits the two largest superpowers, the United States and China. Many think Trump and Xi talk and are aligned on this, behind the loud rhetoric, and both would like to see the end of the London banking cartel.
There is a fine line between conspiracy and reality. The underlying facts are real and verified; connecting them forces a conclusion. Payment systems are being built around the world, gold is being accumulated, treasuries are being shed, fiscal irresponsibility is everywhere, and people are finally thinking past the traditional playbook because it no longer works. The debt is too large. As interest rates go higher, it is game over. We are on the cusp of a new monetary system - a fourth turning. Gold will sit at the center of it. People will not buy food with gold coins, but gold will have a close tie to the system to inspire trust.
There is still time to get gold and silver before it readjusts. Trump and his advisors signal through their policy platforms that the dollar will be allowed to suffer - financial repression, letting inflation eat away the dollar's value and household savings. Currency depreciation is not automatically a deliberate default, and higher rates can also pressure metals.
Re-industrialization needs a weaker dollar. Countries that sold goods to the US did so with currencies much weaker than the dollar, which made their goods cheaper to buy. If the US wants to re-industrialize but keeps a very strong currency, no one buys its products, because buyers must first convert into an expensive dollar at a big markup; they buy elsewhere instead.
Long ago my mentor Richard Russell said the Fed has two choices: inflate or die. The road has gone too far, so the choice is inflate or default. What is happening now, in my opinion, is a soft default on the dollar's reserve status, not on the Treasury market - which I think they will ultimately try to back with gold. The Genius Act shows that after January, money movement in dollars will be backed by US treasuries of 95-day duration or less.
Investors should track central bank disclosures, exchange inventories, and fund positioning rather than treat every price decline as manipulation, and weigh inflation risk against volatility and liquidity needs. Alignment and reported figures need evidence, not conviction dressed up as certainty.
