This extraordinary news that the mainstream media are not reporting

The international financial and monetary architecture is about to change, and the mainstream media are failing in their duty to info

Translated from Essentiel.news - article by Icaros

Almost a year ago, Essentiel News devoted an article to the ongoing upheaval in the international monetary system.

Entitled "A Monetary Catastrophe Looms on the Horizon," the article noted not only that gold was continuing its meteoric rise, but more importantly that the price of the metal was now disconnected from 10-year US interest rates.

The article summarized this exceptional fact as follows:

The reason why gold prices and interest rates should be correlated is obvious: gold yields no return; you don't earn any interest by storing metal. On the contrary, government bonds yield a certain annual rate. When this interest rate is lower than inflation (or even more so negative), then gold becomes more attractive: it is the ultimate safe asset, and even at 0%, its return is higher than a negative real rate. On the other hand, when interest rates rise, gold's attractiveness tends to diminish, as investors prefer to invest their savings in such a way as to extract an income, provided that this investment is secure and the income is guaranteed.

However, this principle, which prevailed for so long, is no longer true; this reflects an ongoing upheaval in the international financial order.

After a presentation of the monetary history of the 20th century and the events that led to the demonetization of gold, the article concludes as follows:

[…] This disconnect simply means that the world no longer trusts the American bond market; it no longer considers it preferable to gold, the sworn enemy of the dollar, even if it promises a return. This promise, and the currency in which it is quoted, are no longer credible. The extraordinary privilege that has allowed the United States to issue the reserve currency for so long, a privilege that has been widely abused, is coming to an end. […]

The firedamp explosion may still take a few months or years to occur, but at least we can say it unequivocally: the canary in the coal mine has just stopped singing.

Six months later, Essentiel News reported a major news story that should have made headlines across the world's press, but instead went virtually unnoticed.

Entitled "The New BRICS Currency Finally Unveiled," this second article focused on the October 2024 summit in Kazan, Russia, during which the Chinese president, while explaining "the urgency of reforming the international financial architecture," announced a new international payments system based on a new reserve currency provisionally dubbed "unity."

The significant dimension of this announcement lies in the nature of this new currency, which would be 40% backed by gold.

Now, in March 2025, things are accelerating; first, gold continued its historic rise: denominated in dollars, it gained 20% in one year. But then (and more importantly), the remonetization of gold became clearer.

This article takes stock of these events of paramount importance, the chronology of which historians will undoubtedly one day retrace.

A Fundamental Reminder

When we write, above, "denominated in dollars, gold continued its historic rise," we are committing a conceptual error, which the vast majority of modern economists and financial analysts are also guilty of.

Indeed, to be completely accurate, we should have written: "denominated in gold weight, the dollar continues its historic decline." Or, just as accurately, "the dollar continues its historic decline," without any further elaboration; for gold is indeed the fundamental monetary asset; the basic standard; it underpins the entire financial system.

The best way to conceive of the international financial system, based on debt and fractional reserve banking, is in the form of an inverted pyramid. At the bottom lies the only monetary asset that isn't debt—that is, it presents no counterparty risk—the 200,000 tons of physical gold mined and stored in some vault or jewelry box.

At the top of the pyramid are the $715 trillion in derivatives, which represent the most artificial and grotesque form of debt.

Between these two extremes lie all other financial assets: paper money, bank credit, government bonds, listed stocks, etc.

This understanding, however, brings another dimension: since the quantity of physical gold mined is relatively constant (increasing by only a few percent each year), the so-called "financialization of the economy" in effect for at least two generations (which means nothing other than the increase in leverage, that is, debt in the system) creates a fundamental structural instability.

There must come a day when—despite "financial innovation"—the amount of debt will simply be too high relative to the amount of real wealth. On that day, the pyramid will topple, and gold will be remonetized.

Given recent events, this day is likely near; a matter of months, or even years. Indeed, trends indicate that this financial "reset" should take place under the guise of Donald Trump's reign in the United States.

To support this hypothesis, we review several recent major news events below, before describing their common denominators and drawing a conclusion.

Fort Knox Audit

Since at least the collapse of the London Gold Pool (which we described in our aforementioned article last year), global financial power has been influencing (i.e., manipulating downwards) the price of gold.

We will not go into detail here, which has already been documented and described by the GATA organization, except to state two things:

The exact mechanism of manipulation is complex and involves the use of "paper gold," i.e., a debt mechanism. Yet at its core, the principle is simple: central banks, through so-called "bullion banks" (which are investment banks like JP Morgan), "lend" their physical gold, thereby selling it on the markets in exchange for collateral. In other words, central banks replace their physical gold with written promises, thereby flooding the market with physical gold, avoiding a sense of scarcity, and influencing its price.

The reason the price of gold must be manipulated is to ensure the continuity of the fractional-reserve fiat monetary system; in other words, the manipulation serves to allow an ever-increasing and ever-lasting increase in the quantity of debt. If gold were worth $10,000 per ounce, this would mean that the dollar would be worth 1/10,000 ounces of gold, and this would amount to a depreciation that would reflect a loss of confidence in the reserve currency. This is why observers aware of this reality have long called for an audit of Fort Knox, the US military base where most of the approximately 8,000 tons of physical gold that the US Treasury claims to still hold is stored.

The last audit dates back to 1953, and for the reasons mentioned above, it is likely that some of the gold is no longer there. It is therefore not surprising that the US government has long rejected the idea of ​​such an audit.

Yet, Donald Trump has recently made waves by repeatedly stating that he supports such an audit; more precisely, he said: "We are going to Fort Knox to see if the gold is still there, or if someone has stolen it."

With these statements, Trump is preparing public opinion for the fact that not all the gold is there; and that if it isn't, it has been stolen. He is thus concealing the fact that the illusion of prosperity the United States still enjoys exists thanks to the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar—the continuation of which depends on the manipulation of the gold price, and therefore on the secrecy surrounding the stockpiles at Fort Knox.

Could it be that when he "discovers" that not all the gold is there, Trump will order the confiscation of the foreign gold on American soil, accusing these allied countries of being behind the "theft"? This would, of course, precipitate a decline in confidence in the American system, and thus the decline of the economic order that this country has governed since 1945.

Tensions on the Physical Market

Another recent development of great importance has escaped most observers, even the most informed: the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association), the world's leading physical gold trading center, is experiencing significant inventory shortages.

The reason given? Donald Trump's protectionist threats are reportedly sparking fears that tariff barriers will also be imposed on gold, leading to an explosion in bullion imports from London to New York.

In all likelihood, the explanation is more complex than that. Here is the summary provided by the specialized financial publication GoldFix:

For decades, investment banks operated on the assumption that gold was always available. This system worked because gold is not consumed, but recycled, leased, and traded. In the event of a supply disruption, banks could borrow metal, cover their needs, and replace it later. This model is now broken.

A new type of buyer has entered the market: they view gold not as a financial instrument, but as money itself. Countries like China and Russia have spent years hoarding gold, prioritizing it over US bonds. Their strategy has reduced the available credit pool, exposing Western banks.

Bullion banks have long engaged in a game of musical chairs, borrowing gold to meet short-term needs. But when there aren't enough chairs—when buyers refuse to lease their holdings—banks are forced to compete for a dwindling supply. This is what is happening now.

Central banks have been net buyers of gold, not only in emerging markets but also in Western countries. Eastern European countries, such as Poland and Lithuania, have increased their purchases, further reducing supply. The once-abundant leasing market is drying up.

Revaluation of US inventories

A third major news item recently caused a stir.

Under Donald Trump's leadership, the financial press has echoed an old idea: revaluing US gold stocks.

In principle, the idea seems clear: the approximately 8,000 tons of gold that the United States claims to still hold are, for historical reasons, still recorded at their 1973 value, or $42.22 per ounce. Yet, an ounce of gold is currently worth nearly $2,900 on the markets.

This means that if the US central bank decided to record the 8,000 tons at their current market value, it would amount to an inflow of over $700 billion.

Investing.com analyst Steve Saville describes the idea this way:

If the value of the assets on the Fed's balance sheet were increased by $750 billion, the revaluation would, we assume, result in the Fed adding $750 billion to the Treasury's general account (TGA—the federal government's demand account with the Fed). In effect, the Fed would create an additional $750 billion for the government to spend.

Therefore, the revaluation would immediately increase the US money supply by $750 billion. Furthermore, as the money is spent by the government—that is, as money moves from the Fed to commercial banks—it would increase bank reserves.

The monetary injection into the economy, which would occur when the government spends its newly acquired $750 billion, would provide a short-term boost to the economy. This means that if the revaluation were to occur over the next two months, it could delay a recession and provide some support to the stock market.

Investor Frank Holmes, writing for Forbes magazine, said:

Let's suppose we revalue these reserves at the current price of around $2,900, as some advocate. The total value would then reach the astronomical sum of $760 billion, creating a windfall of $749 billion.

The government could thus sell some of its gold or improve its balance sheet by reducing its debt. It could even use it to finance a sovereign wealth fund […]

Beyond this accounting maneuver, which creates no wealth, which amounts to quantitative easing in another form, and which would achieve nothing other than the production of even more debt at the cost of high inflation, the mere fact that the financial press is seriously discussing this idea denotes a new fundamental reality: gold is truly a monetary asset, it always has been, and it is once again considered as such. The precious metal is no longer a "barbaric relic," as John Maynard Keynes called it.

This also reveals a historical reality: all bloated states, in all eras and on all continents, have entertained the dream of granting themselves infinite seigniorage; that is, of confiscating, without hindrance or limit, through the hidden tax of inflation, the wealth produced by their feudal slaves. This approach fails every time, because the value of money is ultimately a function of the trust that wealth producers place in it.

It is true that so-called "financial innovation," of which the principle of the accounting revaluation of American gold is yet another grotesque manifestation, allowed the 20th century to bring the reign of debt to an unprecedented paroxysm.

Yet it would indeed seem that this Tower of Babel is on the verge, as it always does, of collapsing.

In conclusion

Several major news stories have hit the financial headlines recently. It is clear that gold, despite all modern attempts at demonetization, retains its status as the fundamental monetary standard.

Yet these attempts at demonetization have had the temporary effect of allowing a considerable increase in the amount of debt in the world. Since the end of World War II, the United States, in particular, has abused its exorbitant privilege as issuer of the reserve currency, building a society that, in addition to suffering from obesity and over-medicalization, is morbidly over-indebted.

Now, under the impetus of the BRICS and a likely impending crisis, the architecture of the international financial and monetary system is about to be reformed; and it is difficult to see how this could be achieved without suffering for the United States and its European satellites.

And ultimately, this is where the genius of the world's rulers lies: by passing the "hot potato" of a failing system to Donald Trump, they may succeed in blaming his "isolationism" for the ills his country will undoubtedly suffer.

In the meantime, let the billionaires rest assured that their preferred bank, Goldman Sachs, is hiding nothing from them, clearly describing what's happening, and encouraging them to continue hoarding precious metals despite record prices.

By Icaros for Essentiel.news