Gold Reserves: USA vs China vs The World (1950–2026)

In 1950, the United States held about two-thirds of all the gold central banks reported. Who bought gold since then, who sold it, and why? 📊 Official data: IMF International Financial Statistics and the World Gold Council ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:10 1950 · The US holds 20,280 t: about two-thirds of the gold central banks reported 0:39 1961 · West Germany's export boom: from no gold in 1950 to 3,256 t 0:55 1966 · De Gaulle's France swaps US dollars for US gold: France reaches 4,655 t 1:12 1971 · Nixon ends the dollar's convertibility into gold 1:34 1976–1980 · The IMF sells or returns a third of its gold, down to 3,217 t 1:58 1999 · The euro is born: the new ECB starts with 747 t from euro-area central banks 2:11 1999–2002 · The UK sells about half its gold, at prices near a 20-year low 2:31 2000–2008 · Switzerland sells 1,550 t after cutting the franc's link to gold 3:07 2014–2018 · After the Crimea sanctions, Russia buys heavily and passes 2,000 t 3:23 2022 · Russia's reserves are frozen 3:37 2025 · Poland is the world's biggest gold buyer: from 229 t (2022) to 550 t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 ABOUT THE DATA Source: IMF International Financial Statistics (via DBnomics), 1950–1999; World Gold Council (based on IMF IFS), 2000–June 2026. Gold deposited with the European Monetary Cooperation Fund in 1979–1998 is counted as still held by each country. The USSR did not report its gold; Russia appears from 1993. Official sources: • World Gold Council: Gold reserves by country: https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gol... • IMF International Financial Statistics (via DBnomics): https://db.nomics.world/IMF/IFS How to read this chart: • Values are official gold reserves held by central banks and international institutions, in tonnes. • In 1979–1998 several European central banks deposited part of their gold with the European Monetary Cooperation Fund; it is counted here as still held by each country. • The USSR did not report its gold reserves; Russia appears from 1993. • Between official data points the bars move smoothly (interpolated); the year counter only changes when the next official figure is reached. ⚖️ Our approach: every number in this video comes from the sources above. We show the data as published, without political opinion or commentary. If you think a figure is wrong, leave a comment with a link to the official source and we will check and correct it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ More videos like this: our “Economies, Gold & Wealth” playlist on the channel. 🎵 Song: Peaceful Corporate by Stock-Waves Download: https://bit.ly/4aQVcX2 Video Link:    • Stock-Waves - Peaceful Corporate [No Copyr...   The Shift Index — how the world shifts, ranked over time. Official data, no spin. Subscribe for a new ranking every week. #Gold #CentralBanks #DataVisualization