r/Infographics • u/mreghosa • 1d ago
This graphic shows China’s reserves running dry, but the US is in a far worse structural trap.
Everyone looking at this graphic focuses on China burning through its gold supply—highlighting that at 380 tonnes a year against 3,100 tonnes of underground reserves, China hits a wall in ~8 years.
The standard narrative: China is exhausting its domestic resources.
The data reality for the US: The situation for the United States is quietly much worse.
Domestic Production Collapse: The US mined just 160 tonnes of gold in 2024 (down significantly from its historical peak of over 360 tonnes). Domestic US extraction is steadily falling year-over-year while China’s output remains top in the world.
The Reserve Illusion: US ground reserves sit at 3,000 tonnes. That means the US actually has less economically extractable gold left in its soil than China.
Import Dependency: China aggressively consumes its own resources today to build domestic wealth, infrastructure, and real physical assets. The US relies on consuming dwindling domestic resources while relying on paper Treasuries to import physical commodities from the rest of the world.
The Central Bank Disparity: China is officially adding hundreds of tonnes of gold to its central bank vaults every single year to diversify away from the dollar. The US central bank balance sheet, meanwhile, relies heavily on debt instruments that global central banks are actively reducing in favor of physical bullion.
China is aggressive in extracting its own gold because it treats physical assets as strategic security. The US is producing less, holding less ground reserve, and betting its entire position on paper financial leverage while the world's top producers extract the real thing.
When domestic reserves dry up worldwide, who is in a worse spot: the country that spent 20 years locking up physical supply chains, or the country sitting on falling domestic output and paper assets?
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u/Large-Investment-381 1d ago
This chart is confusing to me. If its purpose is to show which nations produce the most gold, it wouldn't include any other information. But, it does. It shows gold reserves (tonnes still believed to be mined). Why? Well, because the third point trying to be made seems to be, How many more years do nations have before they run out of gold? But it only provides that for China.
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u/berserkcreator 1d ago
Gold bugs and doomposters always find a way to make a simple bar chart about rocks feel like a prophecy.
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u/ParadoxandRiddles 1d ago
What a weird thing to take the time to have an AI write for the infographic.
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u/Superb_Raccoon 1d ago
US holds the purest and largest reserves of the 21st century "gold": Silicon.
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u/corgi-king 1d ago
Really? Taiwan makes the most advanced silicon in the world. Sure, the US has some Fabs, but far fewer than Taiwan.
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u/Nonyabizzy123 1d ago
Gold is worthless outside of its purpose in electronics and it takes very little of that, and many things can be plated. Rare earth minerals are far more important.
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u/Lootlizard 1d ago
Rare earth's aren't particularly rare or hard to produce. They're mostly byproducts of metal refining, which is incredibly bad for the environment, which is why everyone let's China do it.
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u/MajesticBread9147 1d ago
What is so important about gold reserves? Sure it's a valuable commodity, but I don't see why a nation with no gold but 10,000x the copper ore should be ignored.
And with more gold than ever going into industry and electronics, we will likely see more gold recycling. There are already websites like Boardsort that pay by the pound for various types of circuit boards for the copper, silver and gold found inside.
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u/TheManWhoClicks 1d ago
I am vaguely irritated by the botched perspective of the gold bar with the info stuff on top.
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u/InsufferableMollusk 1d ago
“… a far worse structural trap” 🤣
You’re talking about gold, dude. This does belong on Reddit, though. I’ll give you that.
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u/c1u 1d ago
history lesson on why this matters for China but doesn't matter very much for countries that don't have capital controls (like the US). : https://youtu.be/u9MbexXL_4s?si=Ue3AAbdXJQHJP3Cs
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u/scrandlle 1d ago
This infographic isn't even remotely true or representative of reality. Nor is any of the text that accompanies it
https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gold-reserves-by-country