Re-Anchoring of Monetary Value in Metabolic Realities
Discussion
Chor Pharn:
"The new order is forming around settlement assets that cannot be fabricated by decree. Four conductors of trust have re-emerged: gold, energy, compute, and fiscal credit. Together they form the material backbone of the coming monetary regime.
1. Gold
Central banks have been net buyers for five consecutive years, purchasing well over a thousand tonnes annually. Through the Shanghai Gold Exchange International (SGEI), vaults in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and Zurich now clear trades that never touch Western custody. Roughly a fifth of global gold trade flows through this circuit. Metal has resumed its historical role as the ultimate settlement medium: the margin call that ends every argument. It is not nostalgia; it is accounting.
2. Energy
Energy transition has re-attached growth to conductance—the ability of money and credit to move through real assets without friction. Kilowatt-hours, not basis points, determine capacity. Carbon markets, power-purchase contracts, and strategic reserves are becoming fiscal-collateral instruments. Energy, compute, and credit form the production trinity of the next order: electrons replace promises as the unit of reliability.
3. Compute
Semiconductors and data centres are the new refineries. Compute capacity is financed and insured like energy infrastructure. Control of chips is now a reserve issue; compute power functions as collateral for national strategy.
4. Fiscal Credit
In China, fiscal spending has replaced property leverage as the main driver of demand. Empirical work from the China Finance 40 Forum shows the correlation between fiscal outlay and domestic demand has more than doubled since 2023, while monetary transmission has weakened. The state’s balance sheet has become a transmission grid: capital moves through budgets rather than through banks. Sovereign credit has turned into internal collateral—outside money created inside borders.
Together these four conductors constitute the gold nerve: a material nervous system for value after half a century of abstraction. They are measurable, auditable, finite. They turn trust from belief into balance-sheet discipline."