Stay ahead with the latest cryptocurrency news and analysis
Blockchain
Bitcoin
Blockchain
Blockchain
Bitcoin
Blockchain
A settlement at one of West Africa’s key mining complexes has removed a near-term threat to physical supply, while an entrenched geopolitical risk premium and heavy official-sector buying continue to underpin bullion even as speculative money beats a retreat.
The Loulo-Gounkoto complex in Mali, which produced roughly 190,000 ounces of gold in the first six months of the year, will keep running without interruption after the two sides reached an amicable agreement. That averts the immediate risk of output disruptions from a significant West African source and takes temporary upward pressure off prices.
Professional positioning tells a more cautious story. CFTC data analysed by Arc Research show the managed money net-long position fell by 5,727 contracts in the week to 25 September, leaving it at 127,389 lots. The pullback underscores scepticism about a rapid breakout, and while the World Gold Council reported a tenth consecutive week of net inflows into gold exchange-traded funds, macroeconomic drags are carrying more weight than ETF appetite.
Those drags are familiar: a firm US dollar and elevated Treasury yields are keeping the metal in check, even after softer-than-expected US inflation data cooled speculation about further Federal Reserve rate hikes. Hawkish Fed signals had already weighed on gold about a week ago. Spot bullion closed Thursday at $4,178.15 an ounce, a gain of 0.5%, still well short of its 52-week high of $5,598.58.
Beneath the day-to-day noise, the market rests on a sturdier foundation. Precious metals service provider MKS PAMP, cited by Reuters, puts the structural premium embedded in prices by geopolitical risk and reserve diversification at roughly $840 an ounce. Before 2022 that cushion stood at only about $120, while since then it has averaged more than $1,000.
Physical flows back up the trend. China alone imported 1,077 tonnes of gold between January and August 2026, and the Bank of Korea plans to resume buying bullion from domestic producers starting in December. The combination of hedging demand and central bank accumulation has kept the metal comfortably above $4,000 an ounce, though at Thursday’s close it sat 3.6% below its 50-day moving average of $4,335.70.
Institutional views on the rest of the year diverge sharply. Some analysts point to continued tailwinds from monetary authorities, while Bank of America strikes a more guarded tone, flagging the possibility of temporary pullbacks to $3,750. Should a sharp rise in oil prices reignite inflation and keep rates higher for longer, demand from financial investors could stay muted for a while.
Friday’s official US employment report for September now takes centre stage. Economists expect payrolls growth of roughly 84,000 to 90,000, down from 162,000 in August, with the unemployment rate seen holding steady at 4.1%. The release matters directly for bullion: an unexpectedly strong hiring print could cement expectations of prolonged high rates, whereas clear signs of cooling in the US labour market would ease rate pressure and give the metal room to narrow the gap to its 52-week peak of $5,598.58.
The Dutch central bank has quietly redrawn the geography of its bullion reserves, shifting 86 metric tons from New York and Ottawa to London between March and August. The move leaves the Netherlands with 32.1 percent of its holdings now stored in the British capital, while New York and Ottawa each retain 18.5 percent of the country’s total 612.4-ton hoard, valued at €72.2 billion.
Den Haag’s decision reflects a broader strategic recalibration among European central banks. France pulled roughly 129 tons out of New York between July 2025 and January 2026, shipping the metal back to Paris. Germany walked a similar path earlier, repatriating gold from both New York and Paris to Frankfurt between 2013 and 2017. Goldman Sachs analysts Lina Thomas and Daan Struyven characterize the pattern as a structural shift: monetary authorities increasingly prefer to keep their metal closer to home rather than parked in traditional trading hubs.
That repatriation drive runs parallel to sustained official-sector buying. World Gold Council data show central banks added a net 23 tons in July, bringing the first seven months of the year to roughly 130 tons. China extended its buying streak to a 21st consecutive month, lifting its total stockpile to 2,366 tons. Poland boosted its reserves by 90 tons over the same period, while Russia and Turkey each sold modest amounts. Global net gold demand jumped 62 percent year-on-year in the second quarter to 289 tons — the strongest Q2 reading on record, according to the industry body.
Yet the spot price tells a more complicated story. Bullion closed Friday at $4,430.09 per ounce, down 1.0 percent on the day and 0.5 percent lower over the past week. The metal remains 2.6 percent higher since the start of the year and up 24 percent on a 12-month view, though it trades more than a fifth below January’s record peak of $5,598.58.
The recent corrective phase has been sharp. After touching an interim high near $4,700 roughly two weeks ago, spot gold slid more than 2 percent to $4,342.20, before drifting further to around $4,330 — the weakest level since August 7. The catalyst came from an unexpected direction: renewed US strikes on Iranian targets stoked inflation concerns that pushed Treasury yields higher and strengthened the dollar, inverting the usual geopolitical bid for gold. Rising oil prices amplified the pressure, feeding the same yield-driven dynamic.
Rate expectations have compounded the headwinds. Fed Governor Kevin Warsh signaled unchanged rates in a Friday speech, reigniting market bets on further tightening. Tradingeconomics data show traders pricing a 66 percent probability of a September hike, a scenario that raises the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion. In London, the metal fell roughly 1.5 percent to $4,372 per ounce, while the most active December futures contract dropped to $4,356.40 in early trade.
The technical picture reflects the cooling. Gold now sits 2.2 percent below its 200-day moving average, a sign of consolidation following the metal’s powerful run. Still, the metal remains 4.3 percent higher over the past 30 days, and August closed with a gain exceeding 10 percent, supported by a weaker dollar and firm demand.
Institutional investors have used the pullback to rebuild positions. Asset managers including Amundi, Pictet, Robeco, Fidelity, BNP Paribas and Manulife have been adding gold exposure after prices fell from roughly $5,600 in January to around $4,000 by June. Amundi projects $4,200 per ounce by end-2026 and sees $5,000 as achievable by 2028. Ray Dalio has reportedly advised investors to hold 15 percent of portfolios in gold.
All eyes now turn to the Federal Reserve’s September 16 meeting, the next potential catalyst after weeks of whipsawing expectations between hike and pause scenarios. Whether bullion’s medium-term bid — anchored by central bank accumulation, repatriation flows and institutional buying — can absorb the near-term pressure from rates and a firmer dollar will likely determine whether gold’s two-speed dynamic persists.
The political roadblock that once threatened to derail XRP’s most significant legislative moment has quietly dissolved. The National Sheriff’s Association — which had vocally opposed the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act over concerns that exempting crypto mixers from registration requirements would hamper transaction tracing — has shifted its stance to neutral and withdrawn from the fight. In a letter to Senate leadership, the group cited the extensive work already undertaken by Congress, the executive branch, and industry stakeholders as reason enough to step aside and let the legislative process run its course.
That leaves the path clear for a pivotal Senate vote scheduled for September 15, when lawmakers will take up a cloture motion requiring 60 votes. The procedural hurdle is not final passage but rather the gateway to formal debate — a distinction that matters for a bill that has already cleared the House.
XRP is trading at roughly $1.42, having climbed 39 percent over the past month. The seven-day picture shows a more modest 4.6 percent gain. Yet the token remains 23 percent below its year-to-date starting point and 51 percent off its 52-week high of $3.18, reached last September. The recent bounce, fueled by a steady drip of positive headlines, has done little to erase the losses accumulated over the past year.
The House, meanwhile, has signaled it will hold its final votes before the midterm elections immediately after the Senate returns — a scheduling reality that makes enactment before November all but impossible. The legislative calendar, in other words, may be moving in XRP’s favor, but the clock is not.
The price action tells only part of the story. Behind the scenes, institutional money has been flooding into US spot ETFs tracking XRP at a record pace. August saw net inflows of roughly $153.55 million, with the week ending August 28 alone contributing $110.49 million — the strongest weekly showing of the year, according to market data providers. Cumulative inflows have now surpassed $1.66 billion, pushing total assets under management in the funds beyond $1.44 billion.
The on-chain data reinforces the institutional thesis. Payment volume on the XRP Ledger surged 521.1 percent to approximately 488.4 million XRP, even as transaction count fell 10.5 percent — a divergence that points to significantly larger individual transfers, the kind typically executed by institutional players rather than retail traders.
That pattern echoes trends visible since earlier this year. Daily active accounts on the ledger dropped 24 percent year-over-year in the second quarter to 16,600, while daily order book volume jumped 79 percent to 3.57 million XRP. The average balance of tokenized assets and the RLUSD stablecoin has climbed to roughly $4.26 billion — up from just $99 million six quarters ago. Fewer participants moving more value suggests a network increasingly oriented toward wholesale use, even if the precise drivers remain a matter of debate.
Ripple, as scheduled, unlocked 1 billion XRP from its monthly escrow program on September 1, distributed in three tranches. Roughly 31.28 billion XRP remain locked in escrow accounts, with the company’s customary practice of re-locking 60 to 80 percent of the released tokens each month expected to continue.
Adding to the mix, the Bank for International Settlements published a working paper on September 2 describing a proof-of-concept that ties official statistics to the XRP Ledger through cryptographic fingerprints using SDMX standards. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the test came as no surprise. Investors should note the distinction: this is a test application on a DevNet, not an adoption by the BIS itself. The experiment carries symbolic weight but stops short of demonstrating broad institutional embrace.
Garlinghouse, speaking at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, emphasized that Ripple holds 75 licenses worldwide and supports the CLARITY Act as industry-wide regulation — this despite the company’s four-year legal battle with the SEC ending in a court finding that XRP is not a security.
Ripple’s visibility push continues on the collegiate sports front. Following July’s partnership with the Kansas Jayhawks featuring an XRP patch on jerseys, the University of Florida announced a multi-year agreement on September 5. Starting with the 2026 football season, the XRP logo will appear in the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium — a deal reportedly worth around $5 million annually.
Late September brings another milestone: the shareholder vote on the Evernorth Holdings merger that would bring the company to the Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN and enable a $1 billion XRP treasury position. The SEC declared the S-4 registration effective in late August.
On the technical side, the XRP Ledger is preparing for the fixCleanup3_3_0 amendment, expected to activate around September 11 provided validator support — currently at 82.86 percent — remains above the 80 percent threshold over 14 days. The package bundles eleven fixes spanning Single Asset Vaults, the lending protocol, AMM functions, and the permissioned DEX.
Analysts eyeing a sustained breakout point to a monthly close above $3.66 as the level that would confirm a new trend — a threshold more than double the current price. For now, the September 11 ledger upgrade and the September 15 Senate vote stand as the twin tests of whether XRP’s institutional tailwind can overcome a month that has historically been unkind to the token.
The yellow metal closed Friday at $4,430.09 per troy ounce, shedding 1.0 percent on the day after US payroll figures came in far hotter than anticipated. The American economy added 162,000 jobs in August — nearly triple the 56,000 that economists had penciled in — and bullion traders responded by trimming positions in a hurry.
The logic is straightforward enough: a resilient labor market gives the Federal Reserve less cover to cut interest rates quickly. With gold offering no yield, the prospect of rates staying elevated for longer tends to sap the metal’s appeal relative to income-bearing assets.
That kneejerk reaction, however, masks a more layered picture. Even as short-term rate speculation whipsawed the price, institutional investors were pouring money into bullion-backed exchange-traded funds at the fastest clip in ten months. Reuters, citing World Gold Council data, reported net inflows of 46.7 tonnes — roughly $6.4 billion — in a single week during the second half of August.
The ETF bid stands in sharp contrast to the price consolidation that has gripped the market since late August. Those inflows arrived during a stretch when gold was trading at multi-month highs, with Reuters attributing the advance to a softer dollar, technical buying, and momentum from the US Treasury’s buyback program. That institutions chose to add exposure during such a phase suggests an appetite that extends beyond day-to-day fluctuations.
Central banks are telling a similar story, albeit with more nuance. World Gold Council data shows monetary authorities purchased 23 tonnes in July, led by China with 20 tonnes and Poland with 8 tonnes. Year-to-date buying now stands at roughly 130 tonnes — below the approximately 160 tonnes accumulated over the same period last year, yet still a meaningful signal of strategic interest from the official sector.
The central bank narrative is not uniformly bullish, though. Between January and May, Russia’s central bank offloaded 34.2 tonnes and Turkey’s sold 81.0 tonnes, placing both among the world’s largest sellers. May alone saw net purchases of 41 tonnes, with Poland, China, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan leading the charge. The World Gold Council’s latest survey underscores the prevailing direction of travel: 89 percent of central banks expect global gold reserves to rise over the next twelve months, while 45 percent anticipate increasing their own holdings — a record reading for that poll.
On the supply front, a regulatory shift in Ghana could carry medium-term implications for global refining flows. The country’s state gold trading body, GoldBod, has effectively barred self-financiers from exporting unprocessed doré gold. From September 1, raw production must instead be refined domestically. Ghana ranks among Africa’s more significant producers, so export restrictions of this kind have the potential to reroute material away from international refineries — a factor that may reshape market structure over time without moving prices in the near term.
The immediate driver of price action remains the familiar duet of US yields and the dollar. Early September saw spot gold fall 2.69 percent to a two-week low as Treasury yields firmed and the greenback strengthened, only to recover when yields pulled back and the yen gained ground against the dollar. Reports then surfaced of gold sliding to a more-than-three-week trough, with dollar strength and inflation concerns tied to US-Iran tensions cited as headwinds.
Second-quarter demand data shows the underlying market holding steady: global gold demand totaled 1,268.9 tonnes, flat year on year, against an average LBMA price of $4,506 — 8 percent below the first quarter’s average. August itself was a strong month, with gold climbing 10.5 percent and silver surging 14.9 percent.
The longer-term arithmetic remains striking. Gold currently trades 25 percent above its level twelve months ago, yet sits 21 percent below the record high of $5,598.58 struck in late January. Technically, the metal is 4.4 percent above its 50-day moving average but 2.2 percent beneath the 200-day average of $4,530.34. The relative strength index reads 52.3, pointing to a neutral posture without clear overbought or oversold conditions.
All eyes now turn to the US consumer price index due September 11, which will serve as a key signpost for the Fed’s rate decision on September 15-16. The 30-day annualized volatility of 26 percent suggests swings in both directions are likely to remain the norm.
The market is effectively split between two forces: structural demand from ETFs and central banks providing a supportive floor, while rate expectations and currency movements keep generating turbulence at the surface. Whether the current consolidation amounts to a breather or the start of a longer sideways stretch may well depend on what the inflation print has to say.
Silver closed the week at $66.82 per ounce, a 1.1 percent daily decline that masked a deeper tension now pulling the white metal in opposing directions. On one side sits a slow-burning structural shift in industrial consumption, as the solar sector that once anchored demand growth quietly turns away from the metal. On the other, the familiar short-term driver remains firmly in control: the Federal Reserve’s next move, now less than two weeks away.
The solar story has flipped with surprising speed. BloombergNEF data shows the industry’s silver consumption is set to fall for a second consecutive year in 2025, a reversal for a sector long celebrated as the metal’s most dependable growth engine. The culprit is a process the industry calls “de-silvering” — manufacturers swapping out silver for cheaper alternatives in cell production as the metal’s rally makes it an increasingly painful cost line.
That cost pressure has become acute. Silver now accounts for roughly 20 percent of solar module production costs, according to BloombergNEF, up from just 3 to 5 percent before 2024. The metal’s own price strength has thus become the catalyst for its displacement, and solar companies are investing deliberately in silver-lean cell architectures to defend their margins. For the broader silver market, the implication is uncomfortable: a demand pillar once considered structural and fast-growing is now eroding from within.
Yet for all the hand-wringing over the long-term demand picture, the immediate price action remains hostage to monetary policy. The week’s swings illustrated just how quickly sentiment can pivot. A second US military strike on Iran within three days — a shift from economic pressure to direct operations — sent silver futures sliding to $64.24 at Wednesday’s lows, a two-week trough, as oil prices climbed on Iranian threats against the UAE and Jordan. Rising energy costs stoked inflation concerns, feeding speculation that the Fed might feel compelled to hike in September.
Fed Chair Warsh had reinforced that anxiety on Monday, insisting the central bank still had “work to do” absent clearer inflation evidence, pushing market pricing for a September hike above 65 percent.
Thursday brought the reversal. Governor Christopher Waller signaled he would back holding rates steady if August data confirmed continued inflation progress, and the dollar and Treasury yields retreated from their highs. Silver futures opened at $66.17, up 1.1 percent, and the CME FedWatch tool showed the implied probability of a September hike sliding from roughly 63 percent to about 50 percent within a single session.
The metal’s broader momentum remains intact despite the whipsaw. Prices stand 7.3 percent above their level of 30 days ago and 6.7 percent above the 50-day average of $62.61 — evidence that the recovery of recent weeks has not been derailed. But the annualized 30-day volatility of 36 percent tells its own story about the market’s current temperament.
The decisive moment arrives September 16, when the Fed delivers its rate decision and updated outlook. Market pricing currently implies a 57 to 64 percent chance of a hike, leaving plenty of room for disappointment in either direction. Should the Middle East conflict escalate further and keep energy prices elevated, the central bank could find itself forced into a more restrictive stance despite its dovish leanings — a scenario that would weigh heavily on a metal that pays no yield.
For investors who bought silver primarily as a bet on the energy transition, the de-silvering trend demands a reassessment of that thesis. Other industrial applications and investment demand have so far absorbed part of the slack, but the solar sector’s retreat marks the end of an era in which the green economy was silver’s most reliable growth story. The coming weeks will be dominated by Fed communication and geopolitical headlines; the quieter erosion of a once-core demand base is a story that will unfold over quarters, not trading sessions.