'Weaponization' of the U.S. dollar helped spur gold buying among global central banks China's central bank has been buying physical gold to add to its reserves for at least the past three years - and there's growing speculation that the country may be purchasing even more of the metal in secret as part of a strategy to reduce its reliance on the U.S. dollar. The ramp-up in gold purchases by the People's Bank of China (PBoC) began back in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, Jan Nieuwenhuijs, gold analyst at Money Metals, told MarketWatch. The West at the time froze Russia's foreign-exchange reserves - the U.S. dollar ... (full story)