It has been a lot, these last few weeks, let alone the last 24 hours or so.
Even allowing for the fact that markets have been living at a higher emotional temperature for some time, the opening stretch of 2026 has felt unusually dense. Gold and silver prices have moved sharply in both directions, sometimes within the same week and for investors who hold the metals not as a trade but as part of a long-term allocation, that kind of movement has (of course) raised questions and perhaps even some concerns. I am not talking about gold’s merits in the abstract, but about whether the environment in which gold operates has changed enough to warrant a rethink.
Before answering that, it is worth separating two things that are often conflated in moments like this: gold itself, and the market in which it operates.
Gold has not changed. It remains a scarce, globally recognised monetary asset that is no one’s liability, carries no credit risk and exists outside the financial system rather than within it. It still performs no economic function other than to sit there, inert and unproductive, which is precisely why it behaves differently from assets that rely on growth, leverage, or confidence in counterparties. Those properties are unchanged, and they are the reason gold has survived successive monetary regimes without needing to reinvent itself.
What has changed, and continues to change, is the structure and behaviour of the market through which gold is priced.
For much of the modern era, investors implicitly assumed that gold price discovery was largely a Western phenomenon, dominated by futures markets in New York and London, with physical demand elsewhere acting as a slower-moving counterbalance. That assumption is becoming increasingly outdated. Recent trading patterns suggest that while gold remains a global market, the sequencing of price moves is shifting eastward, with Asia, and China in particular, playing a growing role in short-term price formation.
Recent price action points to a growing influence from Asian trading venues, with the Shanghai Futures Exchange emerging as a more important driver of short-term market dynamics across both base and precious metals. Elevated turnover and open interest suggest that positioning and momentum now play a more visible role in shaping near-term moves. In practice, this has meant that key inflection points in gold and silver prices are increasingly established during Asian hours, with Western markets responding after the fact. China’s importance has long been recognised on the demand side, but its influence is now extending more clearly into the process of price formation itself.
Why should we take note of this? Well, this matters because the composition and incentives of participants active in Shanghai differ from those that dominate Western futures markets. For many domestic investors, commodities futures have become a flexible way to reflect broader macroeconomic concerns and hedge uncertainty. As a result, metals, whether industrial or precious, are increasingly treated as vehicles for capital allocation rather than purely as reflections of physical supply and demand. When that mindset dominates, short-term price action can detach from fundamentals, leading to faster advances and more sudden reversals.
Away from China, we are also seeing structural changes driven by financial innovation rather than geography. Tokenised gold, once a niche curiosity, is now a material force in the bullion market. Tether’s gold-backed token, XAU₮, has accumulated between 125 and 150 tonnes of physical gold, placing it among the largest non-sovereign holders globally and effectively rivaling some of the world’s largest gold ETFs in terms of flows. Société Générale has noted that recent inflows into tokenised gold have at times competed with, and even exceeded, ETF demand, while interacting in complex ways with hedge fund positioning.
This is representative of a shift in how investment demand expresses itself. Tokenised gold introduces a new class of buyer, operating with different constraints, time horizons and reflexes. When such entities “buy the dip” aggressively after sharp corrections, as we have recently seen, they can materially influence short-term price behaviour even if nothing has changed in the underlying supply-demand balance of the physical market.
Taken together, these developments point to an important conclusion. Gold is increasingly being priced in a market that is faster, more global, more speculative and more fragmented than it was even a decade ago. That inevitably means higher volatility, more momentum-driven moves and a greater risk of overshooting in both directions.
So whilst some long-term gold investors might be experiencing some discomfort with this changing market, there is nothing here that should destabilise your investment strategy or even the physical gold market itself.
Longer-term fundamentals still anchor gold’s value. Central banks continue to accumulate reserves. Above-ground supply grows slowly. Gold’s role as a store of value across monetary regimes remains intact. What has changed is the path prices take between points of equilibrium. That path is now more erratic, because the participants setting marginal prices have multiplied and diversified.
This distinction is critical for long-term investors. Volatility in the gold market does not automatically imply that the strategic case for gold has weakened. In fact, one could argue the opposite. The very forces driving these market changes, geopolitical fragmentation, financial innovation, capital controls, politicised policy, are the same forces that reinforce gold’s relevance as a neutral, non-sovereign asset.
COMEX Silver Delivery Shock: What Happens in March?
The mistake would be to interpret recent price swings as a verdict on gold itself rather than as a reflection of how the world now processes uncertainty. Gold is being asked to absorb concerns about inflation, debt sustainability, geopolitical risk, monetary credibility, and now market structure, all at once. That is a heavy burden for any asset, and it should surprise no one that the response is noisy rather than orderly.
From an investment perspective, this is not an argument for abandoning a gold allocation, nor for treating gold as a tactical instrument to be constantly adjusted. I see this as a time to make an argument for clarity about purpose. Gold is not held to provide smooth returns quarter by quarter. It is held because it behaves differently when the assumptions embedded in other assets come under strain.
If anything, the early weeks of 2026 reinforce the logic of that approach. We are moving deeper into a world where price discovery is more fragmented, capital flows are more politically constrained and financial innovation introduces new feedback loops. In such a world, assets that exist outside the credit system, that do not rely on institutional promises and that are globally recognised retain their strategic value precisely because they do not adapt quickly.
The plan, therefore, does not need to change simply because the market has become louder. What is required instead is a clearer distinction between volatility that reflects changing market mechanics and risk that reflects changing fundamentals.
Gold has not changed, rather the world around it has. And in 2026 and beyond, that may be the most compelling reason it continues to belong in a thoughtfully constructed, balanced portfolio.
Buy Gold Coins
Buy gold coins and bars and store them in the safest vaults in Switzerland, London or Singapore with GoldCore.
Learn why Switzerland remains a safe-haven jurisdiction for owning precious metals. Access Our Most Popular Guide, the Essential Guide to Storing Gold in Switzerland here.
Receive Our Award Winning Market Updates In Your Inbox – Sign Up Here
