Output a new bold statement about the divergence of the monetary anchoring strategies between China and the United States...

Today, what's trending is the government agencies' crackdown on cryptocurrency speculation. Everyone is discussing whether this is bad news, but I think this issue can be explained from a higher perspective...

I don't know if you dare to believe it, but China is actually building a decentralized currency settlement network through gold, which operates similarly to BTC...

This chart shows the trend of China's central bank gold reserves over the past 10 years, which can basically be summed up in one word: "buy!" Meanwhile, the central banks of the other 6 countries with the largest gold reserves in the world: the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, and Japan have not shown any such signs...

Japan has slightly increased its holdings, while the gold reserves of the other five countries have been declining year by year...

Why does China hate cryptocurrencies so much while being so obsessed with gold?

This leads to today's controversial theory: China is attempting to rebind gold to the RMB and establish a decentralized cross-border physical gold settlement network, ultimately preparing to replace the US dollar as the international settlement reserve currency...

The general idea of this radical theory comes from the TFTC podcast, and I will briefly summarize it here...

The situation is as follows: As shown in the above image, for the past several decades, the People's Bank of China has been the largest buyer of physical gold in the world. What they have been doing is very simple: selling US Treasuries and buying gold...

At the same time, the Shanghai Gold Exchange has gradually become the largest physical gold trading market in the world. Not only that, China is also establishing a vault network called the "Gold Corridor," which has an interesting distribution, mainly built on the "BRICS countries" ...

This network allows all countries holding RMB to directly exchange gold within it. Unlike the centralized network implemented by the "Bretton Woods System", this gold is not solely held by China, but is distributed in a decentralized manner across all BRICS countries...

This allows the RMB to possess a currency value similar to that of the "USD" in the last century, while also not causing currency credit dilution, because you can exchange RMB for physical gold stored in the country at any time!

Unlike the current dollar dilemma, gold cannot be frozen by electronic systems, nor is there a risk of devaluation under a single regime, such as the path of gradual devaluation of the dollar after the Federal Reserve's pandemic monetary easing...

The reason this matter is brought to the table is that in July 2025, gold was reclassified as a Tier 1 asset under the Basel III accord. If you don't understand this, it's okay; you just need to remember that this upgrade in asset classification means that from now on, gold will hold a position on bank balance sheets almost equivalent to cash or government bonds!

Prior to this, the value of gold on bank balance sheets was only half of what it is now...

The next level after the Tier 1 assets in the Basel III framework is HQLA, which stands for High-Quality Liquid Assets. In simple terms, these are primarily U.S. Treasury securities...

So simply put, gold is only one step away from becoming an asset equivalent to U.S. Treasuries, which is also the main reason why China has been continuously purchasing gold and promoting the upgrade of this asset's attributes in recent years!

The above is the setup, the main event is yet to come...

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Now we can return to the topic of the Golden Vault Network!

If you are familiar with the establishment of the Bretton Woods system in the last century, you would certainly scoff at the gold-currency anchoring system that China is trying to establish. In fact, this is exactly the case; the main reason why the RMB has been unable to become a major currency for international trade settlement or reserve currency is the lack of credit and a solid anchor!

The US dollar, or what was originally known as the dollar, had all its gold reserves stored in the United States. After the Americans announced the removal of the gold standard, the trust anchor of the US dollar gradually shifted towards oil settlements and America's technological and military advantages...

However, these anchored items are completely different from gold; their value fluctuations are quite illusory and even somewhat difficult to quantify, which has given the United States and the Federal Reserve a lot of room for monetary policy operations, thus creating the tide of the dollar under the global economy.

The "Golden Corridor" that China is currently developing is essentially a decentralized vault network. Just like the ledger on the BTC network is collectively maintained by distributed miners, each vault located in different countries is interconnected, and they collectively record the ownership, purity, and weight of each gold bar in all the vaults...

Through this design, all countries that use RMB for settlement can ensure: gold is in my hands, and I can exchange it in real time!

This gives the RMB something that the US dollar has lost for a long time: trust...

All countries that join this network will be able to conduct international trade using gold-RMB in the future, and the entire process does not require any involvement of the US dollar. Simply put, a new settlement network has been established within the existing international currency settlement framework...

And if in the future gold further becomes a HQLA asset, then this gold itself can be regarded as an asset as safe as U.S. Treasury bonds, and these countries would not need to purchase any U.S. Treasury bonds at all; simply holding gold would be sufficient!

At that time, a completely dollar-free financial system can be developed on this dollar-blocked settlement network, as HQLA assets can be used for lending, collateral, and a series of fundamental financial operations, which are the cornerstones of the financial network.

In summary, by following these steps, the main goal is to anchor the RMB to gold, defeating the US dollar in the currency war...

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Why is China cracking down on cryptocurrencies?

The answer is simple. After Trump took office, there was actually a similar trend in the regulation of cryptocurrencies being more open. However, unlike China, the path the U.S. is finding is through crypto assets, which may be BTC or others...

In the currency war that is bound to occur in this century, both China and the United States are seeking the best anchor for their currencies. China has chosen gold, while the United States may currently be choosing crypto assets.

Therefore, for China, the further it goes down this road, the less likely it is to accept BTC and other cryptocurrencies.

Similarly, for the United States, maintaining the dollar's status as the reserve currency is the biggest goal of this century!

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Summary: If this extreme argument continues, China will never open its cryptocurrency market in the future, while the United States may increasingly embrace cryptocurrency...

For China, not only BTC but even stablecoins will be the enemy...

By the way, some people say that the largest gold reserves are not in the United States? Isn't that just sitting back and enjoying the benefits?

But in fact, according to analyses from some institutions, China's actual gold reserves may currently rank second only to the United States, with a large portion of the holdings undisclosed. Moreover, the gold held by the United States is also questionable, with a significant amount not even located on U.S. soil, but in London...