Jim Rickards says Wall Street’s favorite explanation for gold’s rally misses the real driver. Speaking on The Julia La Roche Show, he argued that gold is climbing not because markets are suddenly panicking about runaway currency debasement, but because governments and central banks are adjusting reserve allocations in response to sanctions risk, debt pressures, and changing confidence in sovereign assets.
Rickards pushed back directly against the idea that gold is rising because foreign governments are dumping U.S. Treasurys. He said Treasury ownership data shows stability, not large-scale liquidation. In his view, that weakens the claim that gold is simply reacting to a broad collapse in trust in the dollar.
Central bank demand, not panic, is at the center of the move
He pointed instead to a slower and more durable force: official-sector buying. Since around 2010, central banks, especially those outside the Western alliance, have shifted from years of net selling to steady net buying of bullion. At the same time, global mine supply has remained largely flat. Rickards framed the result in simple economic terms: demand rises, supply does not, and prices move higher.
He also described the way central banks buy. Rather than chase price spikes, they tend to accumulate on weakness, which in his view creates an informal floor under the market. Gold may still swing in the short term. The official bid, he argues, has stayed in place.
Reserve freezes after the Ukraine war changed the calculation
Rickards called the freezing of Russian reserve assets after the invasion of Ukraine a watershed moment. Once Western governments immobilized sovereign reserves held abroad, they showed that reserve assets can become political instruments. That message, he said, was heard clearly by other states managing their own reserves.
From that perspective, gold gains importance because it cannot be frozen as easily as foreign-held financial assets. Rickards added an irony to the episode: Russia’s gold holdings have appreciated by more than the change in value of the assets that were seized.
Gold, in his view, works in deflation as well as inflation
Rickards also rejected the idea that gold only performs in inflationary periods. He said gold has historically held up during deflationary stress because investors move toward assets without counterparty risk. He cited the Great Depression, when gold prices rose sharply even as consumer prices fell, as evidence that gold functions as a monetary asset rather than a simple cyclical trade.
Looking ahead, he kept his long-term view intact and said gold could easily reach $10,000. He did not present that as a speculative blowoff, but as a reflection of currency devaluation over time.
Bitcoin sits in a separate system, not as gold’s replacement
Rickards drew a firm line between bitcoin and gold. He said bitcoin belongs in a different lane, while gold remains the preferred reserve asset for institutions looking for durability and neutrality. In his framework, bitcoin is part of a parallel financial system rather than a substitute for sovereign reserve gold.
He also argued that much of bitcoin liquidity moves through stablecoins instead of direct dollar flows. That structure, in his view, is fragile and opaque, especially when those stablecoins rely heavily on Treasury bills as backing. His conclusion was not that bitcoin displaces gold, but that the two assets operate on different risk curves and serve different functions.