THE global metals complex is no longer merely a reflection of cyclical growth, jewellery demand or speculative positioning. It has become a barometer of a deeper and more consequential shift: the gradual de-monetisation of the post-Bretton Woods financial order and the slow, uneven erosion of US dollar hegemony.
By Brighton Musonza
In a recent market breakdown, a base-metals analyst drawing on Michael Oliver’s Momentum Structural Analysis (MSA) and Momentum Ratio frameworks offers an incisive interpretation of what is unfolding beneath the surface of gold and silver markets. The conclusion is stark: precious metals are being structurally re-rated, not as commodities, but as monetary assets in a world where confidence in fiat systems is fragmenting.
Oliver’s work departs from conventional price-centric analysis. Rather than focusing on short-term volatility or macro headlines, MSA interrogates long-term momentum structures—deep, persistent forces that tend to assert themselves over years, sometimes decades. Once these structures break out, history suggests they do not easily reverse.
According to this framework, gold and silver have already crossed critical momentum thresholds. The implication is that capital is not merely rotating into metals for tactical reasons, but reallocating away from equities, bonds and fiat currencies as part of a secular reassessment of risk, value and sovereignty.
From Financialisation to Stockpiling
This re-rating is occurring alongside a fundamental change in how nations think about money, security and supply chains. The world is quietly moving away from a purely financialised global economy towards one anchored in stockpiled value—critical minerals, strategic metals, energy security and industrial capacity.
China has been at the forefront of this shift. For more than a decade, Beijing has systematically accumulated gold, silver, copper, lithium, rare earths and industrial metals while simultaneously reducing its exposure to US Treasuries. This is not ideological posturing; it is a balance-sheet strategy. In a multipolar world, physical assets are harder to sanction, freeze or inflate away.
The United States, despite its rhetorical commitment to free markets, is moving in a similar direction—albeit less coherently. Massive fiscal deficits, rising sovereign debt and the weaponisation of the dollar through sanctions have paradoxically accelerated the very de-dollarisation Washington seeks to prevent. Strategic stockpiling of copper, nickel, uranium and rare earths is now openly discussed in US policy circles, driven by defence needs, AI infrastructure and the energy transition.
Europe, caught between energy insecurity, demographic stagnation and industrial decline, is scrambling to secure long-term access to metals essential for re-industrialisation. EVs, renewable grids, data centres and AI compute capacity are metals-intensive. Without copper, silver, lithium, cobalt and platinum-group metals, the green and digital transitions simply do not happen.
Gold and Silver as Monetary Barometers
Against this backdrop, gold and silver are behaving less like commodities and more like shadow currencies. Oliver’s momentum ratios show precious metals decisively outperforming equities, bonds and fiat currencies over multi-year horizons. This is not a speculative spike; it is a structural repricing of monetary credibility.
Gold’s role is clear. It remains the ultimate neutral reserve asset—no counterparty risk, no issuer, no algorithm. Central banks across Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa are accumulating gold at the fastest pace since the 1960s. This is a vote of no confidence in the durability of the existing monetary architecture.
Silver, historically underestimated, sits at the intersection of money and industry. It is both a monetary metal and a critical industrial input—vital for solar panels, EVs, semiconductors, medical technology and AI hardware. Momentum analysis suggests silver is now entering its classic catch-up phase relative to gold, a pattern seen repeatedly in past secular bull markets.
At current levels—silver around $76 and gold near $4,966—the gold-silver relationship implies that silver may be approaching a hyperbolic phase, where structural momentum, industrial scarcity and monetary demand converge. Such phases are typically violent, short and wealth-defining.
De-Dollarisation Is Not a Collapse—It Is a Drift
De-dollarisation is often misunderstood as a sudden replacement of the US dollar. In reality, it is a slow erosion—a diversification away from a single monetary anchor towards a basket of currencies, commodities and bilateral settlement systems.
Trade between China and Russia, China and the Gulf, and increasingly within Africa is being settled outside the dollar. Gold is being used as collateral, settlement backstop and reserve hedge. This does not eliminate the dollar’s role, but it weakens its monopoly—and that matters profoundly for global capital flows.
For commodity-rich regions, particularly Africa, this shift is existential.
Africa, Zimbabwe and the Re-Industrialisation Question
Africa holds a disproportionate share of the world’s critical minerals, yet captures only a fraction of their value. In a de-monetising global economy, raw extraction without industrialisation becomes an even greater strategic error.
Zimbabwe is emblematic. It sits atop significant reserves of gold, platinum-group metals, lithium and chrome—materials central to EVs, hydrogen technologies and future manufacturing. Yet without domestic beneficiation, refining and industrial ecosystems, these assets merely subsidise re-industrialisation elsewhere.
The global pivot towards stockpiling and strategic metals creates both risk and opportunity. Countries that control extraction but not processing risk remaining price-takers in a volatile world. Those that build integrated value chains—mining, refining, manufacturing and energy—stand to regain economic sovereignty.
AI and EVs intensify this dynamic. Data centres require massive copper and silver inputs. EVs are metal-dense machines. AI is not virtual—it is physical, electrical and mineral-hungry. The countries that control the periodic table will increasingly shape global power.
A Structural Reset, Not a Trade
Michael Oliver’s long-term projection of gold ultimately reaching $8,000 is not framed as speculative exuberance, but as a logical outcome of sustained momentum, debt saturation, currency debasement and declining trust in traditional financial instruments. In momentum-driven markets, late recognition is costly. The largest gains accrue not to those who chase price, but to those who understand structure.
The current gold-silver rally is therefore not simply about inflation hedging or crisis insurance. It is part of a broader structural reset in which money itself is being redefined—from digits and promises back towards physical constraints, scarcity and sovereignty.
In a world where nations are quietly de-monetising excess finance and re-monetising matter—metals, minerals and energy—gold and silver are not rising. They are remembering what they are.
Those who grasp this distinction may be positioning not for the next cycle, but for the next era.
