Sovereign reserve management has a structural incentive problem. Physical gold carries no counterparty risk — it settles without permission from any government. Dollar-denominated reserves do. After 2022, when Russia's reserves were frozen, that distinction became impossible to ignore for central banks globally. That explains why central banks averaged roughly 27 tonnes of gold purchases per month throughout 2025. Not a gold thesis — a counterparty risk hedge. The structural incentive was real, and the buying pace reflected it. But buying at scale has a natural ceiling. Gold hit record highs heading into 2026. Institutions with fiduciary mandates don't chase all-time highs. They buy on weakness, or when the cost of inaction outweighs price risk. January 2026: purchases dropped to 5 tonnes. The harder question isn't whether the pace will resume. It's whether January marked price discipline at work — in which case buying resumes on a correction — or whether the diversification push has hit operational, legislative, or political constraints that make 27 tonnes monthly unsustainable regardless of price. Those are two different stories with very different implications for what sovereign reserve diversification actually looks like over the next decade. Which explanation do you think fits better?