The sharp decline in gold prices is due to the withdrawal of major gold buyers, resulting in a cliff like decline in the amount of gold purchases by global central banks in the 26th year. We have previously discussed that the strengthening of gold over the past three years is primarily driven by the sovereign reserves of central banks, while the rest can only be considered marginal increments. The Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022 is the key turning point: In the previous decade, the average annual net purchase of gold by global central banks was about 500 tons; Exceeding 1000 tons for three consecutive years from 2022 to 2024 (1080 tons in 2022, 1051 tons in 2023, and 1089 tons in 2024); By 2025, it will significantly decline to 863 tons, falling below the thousand ton mark. In terms of proportion, the proportion of central bank purchases to total demand has skyrocketed from about 10% in the past to over 20% after 2022. But as we enter 2026, in the first two months of January and February, the central banks of major purchasing countries will see a significant decrease in their gold purchases I checked the data and found that the global central bank's gold purchases in January of 26 were only 5 tons, and the data for February has not yet been released. Even though the global central bank's gold purchases have fallen below 1000 tons in 25 years and there are still over 70 tons of purchases per month, global central banks only bought 5 tons of gold in January. You can also use the People's Bank of China as a reference: In 2023, the People's Bank of China purchased an average of 18.75 tons of gold per month; Over the past 24 years, China has purchased an average of 3.67 tons of gold per month; On average, 2.25 tons of gold were purchased in 25 months; Entering 26 years, the People's Bank of China purchased 1.2 tons of gold in January and only 0.93 tons in February. It can indeed be said that there is a cliff like descent. The strongest force in the strengthening of gold, the central bank's purchasing action, has significantly contracted, so the fatigue of gold is very obvious. In addition, the situation in Iran, with soaring oil prices and the risk of inflation rising, has suppressed expectations of interest rate cuts and also led to a weakening of gold. The trend of all asset prices ultimately depends on funds, but the primary driving force behind gold has significantly shrunk. The Polish central bank, which planned to significantly increase its holdings of gold at the beginning of the year, recently stated that gold is profitable and plans to reduce some of its holdings to cash in and use it to increase defense spending. This is likely to become a common trend for the central bank in the future, as the rise in gold prices has turned the most dominant bulls of the past three years into bears. Another manifestation of reflexivity. This article is sponsored by @ bitget_zh, titled 'Bitget Buying US Stocks: Instant Entry, Smooth Trading'