Washington, D.C., April 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gold set 53 new all-time highs in 2025, according to the World Gold Council — roughly one record per week across the entire year. Its annual average price rose 44% year-over-year to $3,431 per ounce, the strongest performance in more than four decades. Gold reached an all-time high of $5,589.38 per ounce on January 28, 2026, according to CBS News. In a newly released video presentation, former CIA advisor and economist Jim Rickards examines what he believes is the more important and less-covered story behind those numbers.
His argument is not about the price itself — it is about what is driving it, and what that reveals about the structural forces reshaping the global monetary environment.
The Institutional Signal Most Observers Are Missing
Rickards' presentation focuses on what he describes as the clearest and most consistent signal in the gold market: sovereign purchasing behavior. According to the World Gold Council, global central banks purchased 1,082 tonnes of gold in 2022, 1,037 tonnes in 2023, and 1,045 tonnes in 2024 — three consecutive years more than double the historical average of 473 tonnes annually between 2010 and 2021. A 2025 World Gold Council survey found that 95% of central banks expected official reserves to increase further over the next 12 months, with none planning to reduce holdings.
Rickards examines what this sustained, broad-based institutional accumulation reflects — specifically, the accelerating trend among sovereign institutions to reduce dependency on dollar-denominated reserve assets, and what that structural shift suggests about the long-term role of gold in the global financial system.
What the Supply Side of the Story Reveals
The demand picture, Rickards argues, becomes even more significant when examined against the supply side. Total annual gold supply grew by just 1% in 2025, according to the World Gold Council, with mine production reaching an estimated 3,672 tonnes. The average new gold mine takes between 8 and 15 years from discovery to production — meaning the supply response to current price and demand signals is structurally constrained regardless of market conditions.
It is in this context that Rickards examines a significant Alaskan deposit — documented in official resource filings as one of the world's largest undeveloped gold and copper deposits, with measured and indicated resources of 71 million ounces of gold and 57 billion pounds of copper. President Trump's Executive Order 14153, signed January 20, 2025, directed federal agencies to expedite natural resource permitting in Alaska — a documented shift in the regulatory environment surrounding projects like this one that Rickards argues carries direct relevance to the global gold supply picture.
What the Presentation Covers
- What three consecutive years of 1,000-tonne-plus central bank gold purchases reveal about the current state of the global monetary system
- Why gold's supply response to record demand is structurally constrained — and what that means for the longer-term price environment
- The documented resource scale of the Alaskan deposit and the regulatory shift brought about by Executive Order 14153
- How J.P. Morgan Research's 2026 projection of gold approaching $5,000 per ounce fits into the structural picture Rickards is describing
About the Presentation
The full video presentation is available for on-demand viewing at no cost. To access the complete session, click here.
About Jim Rickards and Paradigm Press
Jim Rickards is the author of The New Case for Gold, Currency Wars, The Death of Money, and other New York Times bestselling works on global monetary policy and economic strategy. He has spent decades studying the role of gold and hard assets in the international monetary system. His research is published by Paradigm Press.
Derek Warren Public Relations Manager Paradigm Press Group Email: dwarren@paradigmpressgroup.com
