Original Title: "JPMorgan Turns Against Wall Street: Hoarding Silver, Positioning for Gold, Shorting Dollar Credit"
Original Author: sleepy.txt, Dongcha Beating
JPMorgan, the most loyal "gatekeeper" of the old dollar order, is personally tearing down the high walls it once vowed to defend.
According to market rumors, by the end of November 2025, JPMorgan will relocate its core precious metals trading team to Singapore. If the geographical migration is merely a facade, then its essence is a public defection from the Western monetary system.
Looking back over the past half-century, Wall Street has been responsible for constructing a massive illusion of credit with the dollar, while London, as the "heart" of Wall Street's monetary empire across the Atlantic, has maintained the dignity of pricing with its deep underground vaults. The two are interdependent, weaving an absolute control network over precious metals in the Western world. JPMorgan was supposed to be the last and most solid line of defense.
In the silence of official non-comment on the rumors, JPMorgan completed an astonishing asset maneuver, quietly transferring approximately 169 million ounces of silver from the "deliverable" category in the COMEX vault to the "non-deliverable" category. According to rough calculations based on publicly available data from the Silver Institute, this roughly corresponds to nearly 10% of the global annual supply, effectively locked away on the books.
In the brutal commercial game, scale itself is the toughest attitude. This mountain of over 5,000 tons of silver appears to many traders as JPMorgan's prepared chips for competing for pricing power in the next cycle.
Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, Singapore's largest private vault, The Reserve, has timely launched its Phase II project, raising the total capacity of the vault to a staggering 15,500 tons. This infrastructure upgrade, planned five years ago, gives Singapore enough confidence to absorb the massive wealth flowing out of the West.
JPMorgan is locking down the liquidity of physical assets in the West with its left hand, creating panic; while with its right hand, it is building a reservoir in the East to reap the benefits.
What prompted this giant's defection is the undeniable fragility of the London market. At the Bank of England, the delivery period for gold has been extended from a few days to several weeks, while the leasing rate for silver has soared to a historic high of 30%. For those familiar with this market, this at least indicates one thing: everyone is scrambling for goods, and the physical assets in the vaults are starting to feel tight.
The most astute players are often the vultures most sensitive to the scent of death.
In this harsh winter, JPMorgan has demonstrated the instincts of a top player. Its exit marks the imminent end of the "paper gold" game that has lasted half a century, turning stone into gold. When the tide recedes, only by holding onto the heavy physical chips in hand can one secure a ticket to the next thirty years.
The End of Alchemy
The root of all troubles was planted half a century ago.
In 1971, when President Nixon severed the dollar's tie to gold, he effectively pulled out the last anchor of the global financial system. From that moment on, gold was downgraded from a rigidly redeemable currency to a financial asset redefined by Wall Street.
In the following half-century, bankers in London and New York invented a sophisticated "financial alchemy." Since gold was no longer currency, it could be created out of thin air, just like printing money, in the form of countless contracts representing gold.
This is the vast derivatives empire established by the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) and COMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange). In this empire, leverage is king. Every ounce of dormant gold in the vault corresponds to 100 delivery orders circulating in the market. On the silver betting table, this game is even crazier.
This "paper wealth" system has been able to operate for half a century, entirely relying on a fragile gentleman's agreement: the vast majority of investors are only in it for the price difference and should never attempt to withdraw that heavy metal.
However, the designers of this game overlooked a "gray rhino" charging into the room—silver.
Unlike gold, which is eternally hidden underground as wealth, silver plays the role of a "consumable" in modern industry. It is the lifeblood of photovoltaic panels and the nerves of electric vehicles. According to the Silver Institute, the global silver market has been in structural deficit for five consecutive years, with industrial demand accounting for nearly 60% of total demand.
Wall Street can type out infinite dollars on a keyboard, but it cannot conjure an ounce of silver for conductivity out of thin air.
When physical inventories are devoured by the real economy, the billions of contracts on paper become a house of cards. By the winter of 2025, this thin veneer has finally been pierced.
The first red flag was the price anomaly. In normal futures logic, forward prices are usually higher than spot prices, known as a "contango." But in London and New York, the market experienced extreme "spot premiums." If you wanted to buy a silver contract for six months later, everything was calm; but if you wanted to take home silver bars now, you not only had to pay a high premium but also face a long wait of several weeks.
Long lines formed outside the Bank of England's vault, and COMEX's registered silver inventory fell below the safety line, with the ratio of open contracts to physical inventory soaring to 244%. The market finally understood the terrifying reality: physical assets and paper contracts were splitting into two parallel universes. The former belongs to those who own factories and vaults, while the latter belongs to speculators still lost in old dreams.
If the shortage of silver is due to the consumption by industrial giants, then the loss of gold is due to a national-level "run." Central banks, once the most steadfast holders of dollars, are now at the forefront of the run.
Although gold prices in 2025 are at historical highs, causing some central banks to slow their gold purchases tactically, strategically, "buying" remains the only action. The World Gold Council (WGC) recently reported that in the first ten months of 2025, global central banks net purchased a total of 254 tons of gold.
Let's take a look at this list of buyers.
Poland, after pausing gold purchases for five months, suddenly returned to the market in October, buying 16 tons in a single month, forcing its gold reserve ratio up to 26%. Brazil has increased its holdings for two consecutive months, raising its total reserves to 161 tons. China has appeared on the buyer's list for the 13th consecutive month since resuming purchases in November 2024.
These countries are willing to exchange precious foreign exchange for heavy gold bars and bring them back home. In the past, everyone trusted U.S. Treasuries because they were "risk-free assets"; now, everyone is scrambling for gold because it has become the only shelter against "dollar credit risk."
Despite mainstream Western economists still arguing that the paper gold system provides efficient liquidity and that the current crisis is merely a temporary logistics issue.
But paper cannot contain fire, and now paper cannot contain gold either.
When the leverage ratio reaches 100:1, and that single "1" begins to be resolutely brought back home by central banks, the remaining "99" paper contracts face unprecedented liquidity mismatches.
The current London market is trapped in a typical short squeeze dilemma, with industrial giants busy scrambling for silver to maintain production, while central banks are tightly locking up gold as a national fortune reserve. When all trading counterparts demand physical delivery, the pricing model based on credit collapses. Whoever holds the physical assets holds the power to define prices.
And JPMorgan, once the master of manipulating paper contracts, has clearly seen this future earlier than anyone else.
Rather than being a martyr of the old order, it prefers to become a partner in the new order. This habitual offender, which has been fined $920 million for market manipulation over the past eight years, is not leaving due to a sudden moral awakening, but rather making a precise bet on the direction of global wealth flow for the next thirty years.
What it is betting on is the collapse of the "paper contract" market. Even if it does not collapse immediately, that layer of infinitely amplified leverage will eventually be cut down time and again. What remains truly safe is only the tangible metal in the vault.
Betraying Wall Street
If we compare the paper gold and silver system to a glitzy casino, then over the past decade, JPMorgan has not only been the bodyguard maintaining order but also the dealer most skilled at cheating.
In September 2020, to settle the U.S. Department of Justice's allegations of manipulating the precious metals market, JPMorgan paid a record $920 million in settlement. In the thousands of pages of investigation documents disclosed by the Department of Justice, JPMorgan's traders were described as masters of deception.
They commonly employed a cunning hunting technique, where traders would instantly post thousands of contracts on the sell side, creating the illusion that prices were about to collapse, inducing retail investors and high-frequency robots to panic sell; then, at the moment of the collapse, they would withdraw their orders and buy back the bloodied chips at the bottom.
According to statistics, JPMorgan's former global head of precious metals, Michael Nowak, and his team artificially created moments of price collapse and surges in gold and silver thousands of times over eight years.
At the time, the outside world generally attributed all of this to Wall Street's usual greed. But five years later, when that 169 million ounces of silver inventory puzzle piece is placed on the table, a darker thought begins to circulate in the market.
In some interpretations, JPMorgan's past "manipulations" are hard to see as merely attempts to earn a little more from high-frequency trading spreads. It seems more like a slow and prolonged accumulation of positions, where they violently suppressed prices in the paper market, creating the illusion of prices being held down; meanwhile, they quietly collected chips on the physical side.
This former guardian of the dollar's old order has now transformed into the most dangerous grave digger of the old order.
In the past, JPMorgan was the largest short seller of paper silver, the ceiling suppressing gold and silver prices. But now, with the physical chips successfully swapped, they have overnight become the largest long position.
Market gossip is never in short supply, with rumors suggesting that the recent surge in silver prices from $30 to $60 is being driven by JPMorgan itself. While such claims lack evidence, they are enough to indicate one thing: in many people's minds, it has transformed from a short seller of paper silver to the largest long holder of physical assets.
If all of this holds true, then we will witness one of the most spectacular and cold-blooded coups in commercial history.
JPMorgan knows better than anyone that the regulatory iron fist in the U.S. is tightening inch by inch, and that game of paper contracts, which not only costs money but could also cost lives, has reached its end.
This also explains why it is so fond of Singapore.
In the U.S., every transaction could be flagged as suspicious by AI regulatory systems; but in Singapore, in those private fortresses not belonging to any central bank, gold and silver are completely depoliticized. There is no long-arm jurisdiction here, only extreme protection of private property.
JPMorgan's breakout is by no means a solitary battle.
At the same time that rumors were brewing, a top-level consensus on Wall Street had quietly formed. Although there was no physical collective relocation, strategically, the giants completed an astonishing synchronized shift, with Goldman Sachs aggressively setting its gold price target for 2026 at $4,900, and Bank of America even directly calling for a sky-high $5,000.
In the era dominated by paper gold, such target prices sounded like a fantasy; however, if we shift our perspective back to physical assets, observing the pace of central bank gold purchases and the changes in vault inventories, this number begins to have room for serious discussion.
Smart money on Wall Street is quietly repositioning, reducing gold shorts while increasing physical positions. They may not completely dump their U.S. Treasuries, but gold, silver, and other physical assets are gradually being stuffed into their portfolios. JPMorgan is moving the fastest and most decisively, as it not only wants to survive but also to win. It does not want to sink with the paper gold empire; it aims to take its algorithms, capital, and technology to a place that not only has gold but also a future.
The problem is that this place already has its own master.
When JPMorgan's private jet lands at Singapore's Changi Airport, looking north, it will find a larger opponent that has already built high walls there.
Waves of Change
While traders in London are still anxious about the liquidity exhaustion of paper gold, thousands of kilometers away on the banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, a massive physical gold empire has already completed its original accumulation.
Its name is the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE).
In the Western-dominated financial landscape, the SGE is a complete outlier. It rejects the virtual games based on credit contracts found in London and New York, and from its inception, it has adhered to an almost obsessive iron rule: physical delivery.
These four words are like a steel nail, precisely driven into the heart of the Western paper gold game.
At New York's COMEX, gold is often just a string of fluctuating numbers, with the vast majority of contracts being closed before expiration. But in Shanghai, the rules are "full payment" and "centralized clearing."
Every transaction here must have real gold bars lying in the vault behind it. This not only eliminates the possibility of infinite leverage but also raises the threshold for "shorting gold" significantly, as you must first borrow real gold to sell it.
In 2024, the SGE delivered an astonishing report card, with annual gold trading volume reaching 62,300 tons, a 49.9% increase from 2023; the trading value soared to 34.65 trillion yuan, an increase of nearly 87%.
When the physical delivery rate at New York's COMEX was less than 0.1%, the Shanghai Gold Exchange had become the world's largest reservoir of physical gold, continuously absorbing global stockpiles of gold.
If the inflow of gold is a strategic reserve for the country, then the inflow of silver represents China's "physiological thirst" for industrial needs.
Wall Street speculators can use paper contracts to bet on prices, but as the world's largest photovoltaic and new energy manufacturing base, Chinese factory owners do not want contracts; they must obtain real silver to start production. This rigid industrial demand has made China the world's largest precious metals black hole, continuously devouring Western stockpiles.
The path of "Western gold moving East" is busy yet secretive.
Take the journey of a gold bar as an example. In Switzerland's Ticino region, some of the world's largest gold refineries (such as Valcambi and PAMP) are operating day and night. They are executing a special "blood exchange" task, melting and purifying 400-ounce standard gold bars transported from London, then recasting them into 1-kilogram bars with a purity of 99.99%, known as "Shanghai Gold."
This is not only a physical transformation but also a change in monetary attributes.
Once these gold bars are melted into 1-kilogram specifications and stamped with the "Shanghai Gold" mark, they are almost impossible to flow back to the London market. To return, they must be melted and certified again, which is extremely costly.
This means that once gold flows eastward, it is like river water entering the sea, with no turning back. The waves surge and the vast river flows endlessly.
On the tarmacs of major airports around the world, armored convoys bearing the logos of Brink's, Loomis, or Malca-Amit are the transporters of this great migration. They continuously fill the vaults in Shanghai with these recast gold bars, becoming the physical foundation of the new order.
Whoever controls the physical assets controls the narrative. This is precisely the strategic significance that SGE's leader, Yu Wenjian, repeatedly emphasizes in establishing a "Shanghai Gold" benchmark price.
For a long time, the global gold pricing power has been firmly locked in the London afternoon fix at 3 PM, as it reflects the will of the dollar. But Shanghai is attempting to sever this logic.
This is a high-level strategic hedge. As countries like China, Russia, and those in the Middle East begin to form an invisible alliance for "de-dollarization," they need a new universal language. This language is neither the renminbi nor the ruble, but gold.
Shanghai is the translation center for this new language. It is telling the world that if the dollar is no longer trustworthy, then please believe in the real gold and silver stored in your own warehouse; if paper contracts may default, then please trust the Shanghai rules of cash on delivery.
For JPMorgan, this is both a significant threat and an opportunity that cannot be ignored.
To the west, it cannot return, as there is only exhausted liquidity and tightening regulations; to the east, it must face the giant that is Shanghai. It cannot directly conquer Shanghai, as the rules there do not belong to Wall Street, and the walls are too thick.
The Last Buffer Zone
If Shanghai is the "heart" of the Eastern physical asset empire, then Singapore is the "frontline" of this East-West confrontation. It is not just a geographical transit point but also the last line of defense carefully chosen by Western capital in the face of the rise of the East.
Singapore, this city-state, is investing almost frantically to transform itself into the "Switzerland" of the 21st century.
Located next to Changi Airport's runway, Le Freeport is the best window to observe Singapore's ambitions. This freeport, with independent judicial status, is a perfect "black box" in both physical and legal terms. Here, the flow of gold is stripped of all cumbersome administrative regulations, with the entire process from the plane landing to the gold bars entering the vault completed in a completely closed, tax-free, and highly private loop.
Meanwhile, another super vault named The Reserve has been on high alert since 2024. This fortress, covering 180,000 square feet, has a total designed capacity of up to 15,500 tons. Its selling point is not only the one-meter-thick reinforced concrete walls but also a privilege granted by the Singapore government—complete exemption from Goods and Services Tax (GST) on investment-grade precious metals (IPM).
For market makers like JPMorgan, this is an irresistible temptation.
However, if it were only about taxes and vaults, JPMorgan could easily choose Dubai or Zurich. Its ultimate choice of Singapore hides deeper geopolitical calculations.
In Wall Street, directly moving the core business from New York to Shanghai is akin to "defection," which in the current unpredictable international political climate is tantamount to suicide. They urgently need a fulcrum, a safe harbor that can reach the vast physical market of the East while providing political security.
Singapore is the unequivocal choice.
It guards the Strait of Malacca, connecting London’s dollar liquidity while reaching the physical demands of Shanghai and India.
Singapore is not only a safe harbor but also the largest transit hub connecting two divided worlds. JPMorgan is trying to establish a never-setting trading loop here: fixing prices in London, hedging in New York, and hoarding in Singapore.
However, JPMorgan's calculations are not without flaws. In the competition for pricing power in Asia, it cannot avoid a formidable opponent—Hong Kong.
Many mistakenly believe that Hong Kong has fallen behind in this round of competition, but the reality is quite the opposite. Hong Kong possesses a core advantage that Singapore cannot replicate: it is the only channel for the renminbi to go abroad.
Through the "Gold Connect" program, the Hong Kong Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange (CGSE) is directly connected to the Shanghai Gold Exchange. This means that gold traded in Hong Kong can directly enter the delivery system of mainland China. For capital truly wanting to embrace the Chinese market, Hong Kong is not "offshore," but an "onshore" extension.
JPMorgan chose Singapore, betting on a "dollar + physical" hybrid model, attempting to establish a new offshore center on the ruins of the old order. Meanwhile, established British banks like HSBC and Standard Chartered continue to heavily invest in Hong Kong, betting on the future of "renminbi + physical."
JPMorgan thought it had found a neutral safe harbor, but in the geopolitical meat grinder, there is never a true "middle ground." Singapore's prosperity is essentially the result of the overflow of Eastern economies. This seemingly independent luxury yacht has long been locked in the gravitational field of the Eastern continent.
As Shanghai's gravitational pull grows stronger, as the landscape of gold priced in renminbi continues to expand, and as China's industrial machine continuously devours the physical silver in the market, Singapore may no longer be a neutral safe harbor, and JPMorgan will have to make another fateful choice.
Rebooting the Cycle
The rumors about JPMorgan may eventually receive an official explanation, but that is no longer important. In the business world, sharp capital always senses the tremors of the earth's crust at the first moment.
The source of this tremor is not in Singapore, but deep within the global monetary system.
For the past fifty years, we have been accustomed to a "paper contract" world dominated by dollar credit. It was an era built on debt, promises, and the illusion of infinite liquidity. We once thought that as long as the printing press was running, prosperity could be perpetual.
But now, the winds have completely changed.
As central banks spare no effort to bring gold back to their countries, and as global manufacturing giants begin to anxiously compete for the last piece of industrial silver, we are witnessing a return of an ancient order.
The world is slowly but surely returning from the ethereal credit monetary system to a tangible asset system. In this new system, gold is the measure of credit, and silver is the measure of production capacity. One represents the bottom line of safety, while the other represents the limits of industry.
In this long migration, London and New York are no longer the only endpoints, and the East is no longer just a simple manufacturing factory. New rules of the game are being established, and new power centers are forming.
The era defined by Western bankers in valuing gold and silver is slowly fading away. Gold and silver remain silent, yet they answer all questions about the times.
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