Ben Nadelstein

The invisible hand needs a copywriter! Most reforms don't fail on the economics but on the branding. “Abolish the minimum wage” vs “expand internships.” Same mechanisms, different reactions. Inspired by @RorySutherland @glenweyl @bryan_caplan @FrankLuntz substack.com/home/post/p-18…

@DariusDale42 replaced bonds with 30% gold in his portfolio. Not because he is a gold bug. Because bonds stopped behaving as a defensive asset. The stock-bond correlation has been positive since 2020. The 60/40 portfolio is built on an assumption that no longer holds. And the structural reasons behind that shift, Europe remilitarizing, Japan reflating, China decoupling, are not going away. Darius Dale, founder and CEO of 42 Macro, joins The Gold Exchange to work through the framework, why gold replaced bonds, and what the increasing institutional adoption of this approach means going forward. Watch here: youtube.com/watch?v=DVxotf…

"Working in closer collaboration means we can move faster, move better, and do it better than anyone else." – Gabriel Nasser, Founder and CEO of TJS USA Inc. Yesterday we announced the acquisition of TJS USA Inc., bringing together gold leasing and independent asset assurance. Hear Gabriel and Keith explain why it matters: monetary-metals.com/building-rigor… #MonetaryMetals #Gold #Investing

The world is not facing a shortage of oil. It is facing a shortage of refined products. Gasoline, diesel, lubricants, and sulfuric acid for fertilizer.  That distinction is not making headlines, and it changes the investment picture significantly. @rcwhalen, chairman of Whalen Global Advisors, joins The Gold Exchange to work through what that means for inflation, why credit spreads are at historic lows when they should be widening, and why he thinks gold is going to be the counterpoint to the dollar going forward. Watch here: youtube.com/watch?v=H-TlRI…

Total global gold supply grew by just 1% in 2025, even with prices near record highs. Mine production hit a new record at 3,672 tonnes last year, and recycled supply rose 3%. Combined, the total supply still only grew by 1% of the existing aboveground stock.  Compare that to how quickly a fiat currency supply can expand. You cannot print gold. Higher prices make it worth mining more, but the geology does not respond to monetary policy decisions.  That slow supply growth is not a quirk. It is the reason gold behaves differently from every currency in circulation today. This is one of the core reasons investors have used gold specifically as a purchasing power hedge and why the affordability conversation keeps coming back to it. Read more on this: monetary-metals.com/insights/artic…

India has tried to unlock its gold for decades. Monetization schemes. Import restrictions. Verbal appeals. None of it has stopped the flow. When the government paid people to deposit gold, they collected double-digit tons after years of effort. Then they dropped the incentive and asked nicely. The math on that was never good. Because the demand for gold in India does not respond to policy the way other assets do. Ban the official channel, and an unofficial one opens. Restrict imports, and another country's import numbers quietly spike. The gold finds its way in. What looks like a policy problem is actually something simpler: when people want gold, they get gold. Governments can shape the channel. They cannot close it.

The technology changed, but the questions about money didn't. From coins and paper notes to digital payments, the way we transact has evolved, but the conversation around money continues 250 years later. How well do you know America's monetary history? Take the quiz: monetary-metals.com/insights/artic…

China bought oil cheaply when the world was distracted. Now it holds an estimated 1.8 billion barrels in reserve. When the Middle East conflict ends, and crude becomes widely available again, China buys cheaply a second time. That is not luck. That is a strategy operating on a decade-long horizon. The gold story runs parallel. China and Russia began coordinating after 2014. The selling of US Treasuries and the opening of the Shanghai physical gold exchange were not coincidences. They were the first moves in a longer game. The post-World War Two architecture gave the P5 veto power precisely so none of them could be sanctioned. When that guarantee was broken, China and Russia started building an alternative. That alternative is a world where gold re-emerges as the neutral reserve asset for settling international trade imbalances. The US dollar's dominance has rested on military and fiscal strength. Both are now under pressure. The countries preparing for what comes next have been accumulating gold, quietly, for a decade. @DoombergT

In a crisis, people do not sell dollars to get gold. They sell gold to get dollars. The Middle East conflict made this plain. When commodity prices spiked and liquidity tightened, countries across the Gulf, Turkey, Russia, and beyond did not reach for gold. They sold it because dollars are still the only thing that settles the world's obligations. That is not a bearish case for gold. Gold accumulated over the years is still a powerful asset. But the sequence matters. Gold is accumulated in calm. Dollars are demanded in a crisis. Until the underlying system changes, that is the order of operations every gold holder needs to understand. @SantiagoAuFund

@TaviCosta. Rapid fire. Three questions. What is the most underrated story in energy right now? "Natural gas. If you look at the oil-to-natural gas ratio on a BTU equivalent, natural gas is way too cheap relative to oil. It is a place to be focused on." Which emerging markets are the most overhyped and underhyped? "Bolivia is definitely underhyped. Argentina has led the way, so it looks less asymmetric, but you also get more quality because the political shift is working. Bolivia has all the ingredients but hasn't seen the shift yet. I don't think there's anything overhyped right now." Which BRICS country will outperform going forward? "I think Brazil could really outperform. The biggest country in Latin America, very neutral, not in any war, and a major commodity exporter. I like it here a lot."

@TaviCosta. Rapid fire. Three questions. What is the most underrated story in energy right now? "Natural gas. If you look at the oil-to-natural gas ratio on a BTU equivalent, natural gas is way too cheap relative to oil. It is a place to be focused on." Which emerging markets are the most overhyped and underhyped? "Bolivia is definitely underhyped. Argentina has led the way, so it looks less asymmetric, but you also get more quality because the political shift is working. Bolivia has all the ingredients but hasn't seen the shift yet. I don't think there's anything overhyped right now." Which BRICS country will outperform going forward? "I think Brazil could really outperform. The biggest country in Latin America, very neutral, not in any war, and a major commodity exporter. I like it here a lot."

India imports more than 800 tons of gold a year. A significant slice of that arrives as bars and coins. It sits in homes, in lockers, in drawers. Waiting for a daughter's wedding. Waiting for a reason. Meanwhile, international banks are already leasing gold to jewellers and fabricators who need it to operate. The demand is there. The gold is there. The ecosystem to connect them is not. If India built that bridge, a 100-gram holding today becomes 140 or 150 grams in ten years. Same gold. No extra outlay. Just put it to work. The import problem does not require more restrictions. It requires a better offer.

Gold is in a bull run. So you would expect the companies that dig it out of the ground to be flying. They are not. The miners are deeply undervalued. @TaviCosta says the reason is simple. Investors do not believe the profits will last. "A lot of investors don't believe in the sustainability of this profitability that they are seeing." Tavi disagrees. "We're in a world of structurally higher resource prices." Look at the numbers. A silver project producing at around $15 an ounce. Selling that silver for 60, 70, even 80 or 90 on a volatile day. "Better margins than any other technology company." So why are the share prices stuck? Many are retesting price levels from 2011 while generating more free cash flow than they ever have. "The share prices should be all-time highs by far." Unless, he says, you believe the profits are not sustainable. "We have to adjust our views when the data changes. And the data has changed." But Tavi is honest about what comes next. Right now is the honeymoon phase, where investors appreciate the margins. Eventually, the conversation changes. Depleting reserves. Deteriorating grades. Years of thin exploration. The concern stops being margins and starts being growth. Which is why his focus is on the companies that can still grow, and the ones that become M&A targets when that day comes.

Demand shocks in oil and gold are not the same thing. Block a small flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, and you can massively disrupt the entire market. Major price swings. Major volatility. Shut down gold mining in an entire region, and the price barely moves. That is because major swings in gold come from demand, not supply. The same cannot be said about oil. And even gold's industrial use tells the story. In places like India, jewellery is bought by the ounce at spot price plus a small making charge. It is not a fashion purchase. It is wearable money. Oil has no equivalent. You cannot store it easily. You cannot wear it. It has no monetary, safe-haven, or store-of-value attributes. Just because something is a commodity with safe-haven characteristics does not make it money. Gold has all of that. Commodity characteristics. Safe-haven characteristics. Durability. Fungibility. Small bid-ask spreads. And a stock-to-flow ratio that makes it behave as a monetary metal. Oil does not.

Oil spiked 13% in a single session when conflict broke out in the Middle East. Suddenly, everyone had the same idea: oil is the new gold. The new hard asset. The new haven. People with real money on the line started repositioning their entire portfolios around that thesis. They may be making a very expensive mistake. Oil is a commodity. Gold is money. Those are not the same thing. Oil prices respond to supply and demand shocks. Gold responds to monetary crises, monetary debasement, and monetary conflicts. Gold barely moved during the oil spike. That is not a failure of gold. That is gold behaving exactly as it should. Know the difference before it costs you.

According to @SantiagoAuFund, when the Iran conflict hit, countries sold gold to get dollars, which is not because gold failed them, but because dollars are what the world runs on when liquidity is urgently needed. That is the Dollar Milkshake thesis playing out in real time. Brent Johnson, creator of the Dollar Milkshake Theory and founder of Santiago Capital, joins The Gold Exchange to work through what the conflict revealed about the dollar, why the bigger risk is the dollar going too high rather than collapsing, and what a transition away from the current system actually looks like. Watch the full conversation here: youtube.com/watch?v=GOaA3e…

Gold and oil are both hard assets. Both are globally traded. Both react to wars and inflation. So why do investors treat them completely differently? The answer comes down to one thing: gold has monetary characteristics that oil simply does not. Oil needs specialized tankers. It degrades. It is toxic and difficult to store safely over time. Gold? Millions of dollars' worth fit in a backpack. It does not corrode, it does not expire, and it does not cost a fortune to hold securely. That durability and simplicity of storage are exactly what make gold a monetary metal, not just a commodity.

@DiMartinoBooth. Rapid fire. Three questions. Has the real estate crisis peaked? "We haven't peaked in terms of real estate losses at all. Distressed office sales last year were at a ten-year high. It sure as heck isn't over." Is the US too focused on its own problems while the global economy slides? "Ignoring the truth about the state of the US economy is a very risky game to play when so many oil-importing nations' economies are being eviscerated." With Kevin Warsh as Fed chair, do rates break 6% or drop below 2%? "Well, if we see interest rates break 6%, then we might be forced to the zero bound."

According to @DiMartinoBooth, Powell staying on at the Fed as a governor after handing the chair to Warsh isn't just a procedural footnote. The parallel she draws is hard to ignore. The last time a Fed chair held his board seat, it was Mariner Eccles in the 1940s, and he did it specifically to protect monetary policy from outside pressure. That question has always shaped how monetary policy gets made, and it matters for anyone thinking seriously about currency and long-term purchasing power. Watch the video here: youtube.com/watch?v=_XZftG…

The idea of a gold-backed Yuan dethroning the dollar is widely hyped in gold circles. But as @solis_mullen points out, China has given no indication it is actually going to do this. He argues the more likely explanation for China's gold buying is simpler: protection and diversification. What happened to Russia's holdings in the global financial system showed that property rights are not guaranteed if you are playing inside Washington's financial system. Gold does not operate that way. So it is smart to have it.

A great interview by @BenNadelstein