BloFin Research: Gold’s Three-Phase Demand Expansion

BloFin Research

Wed, May 6, 2026 astatine 8:34 AM CDT 7 min read

Gold's existent rally is rooted successful a sequential enlargement of structurally chiseled purchaser classes, sovereign, institutional, and crypto-native, each adding request without displacing anterior layers, successful opposition to anterior golden cycles wherever terms spot depended connected a azygous ascendant class of buyer.

• Central banks purchased supra 1,000 tonnes annually for 3 consecutive years (2022–2024), establishing a sovereign request level that preceded the instrumentality of Western concern flows.

• ETF and backstage superior re-entered successful 2025, adding 801 tonnes, but Western portfolios stay under-allocated astatine 0.17% of U.S. backstage fiscal assets versus a humanities norm person to 1–2%, leaving important country for enlargement without requiring caller purchaser categories.

• Crypto-native request is forming a structurally autarkic 3rd furniture done tokenized golden (35–40t, $6B+), stablecoin reserves (Tether $20B), and yield-bearing structures, introducing golden arsenic productive collateral alternatively than passive reserve successful integer fiscal systems.

Common characterisations of golden arsenic a macro hedge picture what golden does successful portfolios; they bash not place who has been buying, successful what size, oregon wherefore that buying has persisted crossed 3 years of rising prices.

The defining diagnostic of this golden rhythm is the sequencing of buyers. Three overlapping request phases person developed independently.

Phase 1: The Sovereign Floor (2022–2024)

Central banks established the instauration of this rhythm earlier ETF flows oregon retail information returned successful immoderate meaningful size. Annual nett purchases exceeded 1,000 tonnes for 3 consecutive years betwixt 2022 and 2024, the anterior single-year grounds was astir 610 tonnes successful 2013. The standard and persistence of this accumulation was without modern precedent.

Source: https://www.gold.org/goldhub/research/gold-demand-trends/gold-demand-trends-full-year-2025/central-banks#from-login=1&login-type=google

The structural characteristics of central-bank request explicate wherefore this created a durable level alternatively than a impermanent spike. Reserve allocation is strategic: purchases are driven by portfolio rebalancing and de-dollarisation objectives, not terms momentum. This buying is broadly insensitive to short-term terms levels, request persisted arsenic golden moved higher.

In 2025, purchases moderated to 863 tonnes (by World Gold Council), beneath the anterior three-year gait but inactive supra the humanities average. Poland led disclosed buying; a important stock of accumulation remained unreported crossed aggregate jurisdictions. The sovereign level explains the different anomalous divergence betwixt rising prices and level oregon declining ETF holdings done 2022–2024: the marginal purchaser was sovereign, not market-driven capital.