The New Great Wall of China

For years, investors have looked at China’s gold production, its central bank buys, and scratched their heads.

The Chinese have infamously refrained from making significant changes to its gold holding reports.

While its central bank continues to keep mum, private research sources suggest total gold supplies in China are soaring:

Turn Your Images On

During the global inflation era unleashed by pandemic spending, China began aggressively selling U.S. Treasurys and buying gold. (Source: Steno Research)

The people’s party appears to be constructing a 21st century Great Wall: Built out of gold, and less susceptible to losses than a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar.

Some historic irony, here.

China invented paper currencies in the Tang Dynasty in the 7th Century. Known then by the Mandarin characters that mean “flying cash,” the currency, like all paper money, lost its value.

Today, as the rest of the world goes all-in on fiat, and begins to digitize the dollar, China’s rediscovery of gold as an asset suggests that gold’s run isn’t over… yet.

~ Addison

P.S. This week on Grey Swan Live! we’re planning a special two-fer for you. On Thursday, October 23, 2025 at 2 p.m. ET we’re going to do a run down of all the historical records this terrifying bull market has already hit — including retail investor buy-in, record margin debt and capital concentration at the top of the S&P 500.

We’re going to lay out in simple terms the AI crash scenario. Mostly, so you’re aware of what’s at stake, where we are in the mania and exactly what we expect to happen.

As Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of Too Big To Fail, said this week while promoting his new book “1929,” if we’re all in agreement this is a bubble in AI stocks, the trick is to “know when to get on [and more importantly] get off, the wave.”

Then, on Friday, October 24, 2025 at 2 p.m. ET, we’re going to do a comprehensive asset allocation and model portfolio review for paid-up annual members of the Grey Swan Investment Fraternity.

During the review session on Friday, we’ll be giving you access to an exclusive Plunge Protection Plan (for annual members only) including ways you can protect your money against a stock market correction and a few aggressive ways you can make money like the pros when the stock market goes down.

We’ll be providing more details throughout the week. But for now mark your calendar for these two dates:

Thursday, October 23, 2025 @ 2 p.m. ET — comprehensive overview of the “terrifying bull market.”
Friday, October 24, 2025 @ 2 p.m. ET — a comprehensive review of the Grey Swan asset allocation strategy and model portfolio. (For paid up annual members only)

The time to prepare for a market correction is before it happens, not while or after. If you wait to long, the the exits will get crowded in a hurry… and you don’t want to be worrying about your money if and when that happens.

If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.

For years, investors have looked at China’s gold production, its central bank buys, and scratched their heads.

The Chinese have infamously refrained from making significant changes to its gold holding reports.

While its central bank continues to keep mum, private research sources suggest total gold supplies in China are soaring:

Turn Your Images On

During the global inflation era unleashed by pandemic spending, China began aggressively selling U.S. Treasurys and buying gold. (Source: Steno Research)

The people’s party appears to be constructing a 21st century Great Wall: Built out of gold, and less susceptible to losses than a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar.

Some historic irony, here.

China invented paper currencies in the Tang Dynasty in the 7th Century. Known then by the Mandarin characters that mean “flying cash,” the currency, like all paper money, lost its value.

Today, as the rest of the world goes all-in on fiat, and begins to digitize the dollar, China’s rediscovery of gold as an asset suggests that gold’s run isn’t over… yet.

~ Addison

We’re going to lay out in simple terms the AI crash scenario. Mostly, so you’re aware of what’s at stake, where we are in the mania and exactly what we expect to happen.

Then, on Friday, October 24, 2025 at 2 p.m. ET, we’re going to do a comprehensive asset allocation and model portfolio review for paid-up annual members of the Grey Swan Investment Fraternity.

We’ll be providing more details throughout the week. But for now mark your calendar for these two dates:

Thursday, October 23, 2025 @ 2 p.m. ET — comprehensive overview of the “terrifying bull market.”
Friday, October 24, 2025 @ 2 p.m. ET — a comprehensive review of the Grey Swan asset allocation strategy and model portfolio. (For paid up annual members only)

If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.

Trillions of dollars are already being transferred and tracked on the tokenized rails that Visa, JPMorgan, Mastercard and other major financial institutions plan to scale globally in the next 12 months.

Meaning, there’s no longer such a thing as “crypto vs. the banks.”

Because the same financial giants that crypto once tried to replace are taking the best parts of blockchain — speed, transparency and programmability — and fusing them into the system they already control.

And as each domino falls, it brings us closer to a world where money moves as easily as data.

It means that by the end of 2025, digital dollars could settle more value than PayPal ever has.

So if you’re still treating digital money as “the future,” you’re already a step behind.

Consumer spending on ChatGPT has plateaued in Europe, with growth now near zero after peaking at +20% in 2023. Yet investors continue to price in boundless growth — what we’ve come to recognize as a classic late-stage bubble pattern.

The “No Kings” crowd might one day discover that the tyranny they fear doesn’t wear a crown. It wears a smile, signs checks, and calls itself “the common good.”

And like all monarchs in the end, it will demand obedience — long after the cheering stops.

If history rhymes, as it seems to, we’re somewhere between the late 1930s and the late Roman Republic. The crowds are restless, the debt insatiable, the elites insulated, and the reformers convinced they can vote their way to virtue. The yachts are still in the harbor; the customers are still swimming.

“No Kings”? Fine. But remember: every time the crowd dethrones a monarch, it tends to crown a bureaucracy. And bureaucracies, unlike kings, never die.

Wall Street will always sell tickets to the parade—radio in 1929, dot-coms in 1999, GPUs in 2025. Some parades end in confetti; others in subpoenas. Schwed’s wisdom still stands: you don’t need to time the last note, just keep your seat close to the exit.

If the boom continues, your portfolio participates. If it falters, your ballast buys you time—and maybe your own modest “yacht,” which Schwed would remind you is simply a sturdy rowboat, with good oars and a sound hull.