Gold maintained its role as a safe haven asset for investors in 2025 with the precious metal’s price breaking records 53 times over the year, delivering its strongest performance since 1979.
Investors ploughed USD89 billion into gold – the largest inflows on record – while global gold ETFs’ assets under management (AUM) doubled to an all-time high of USD559 billion, according to the World Gold Council.
North American investors led the charge into ETFs accounting for USD290.3 billion of gold AUM during 2025, while Europe amassed USD196.6 billion and Asia holdings almost doubled at USD61.8 billion.
Escalating global trade disputes, geopolitical tensions and financial market volatility are driving the gold rush, as well as new sources of demand for the precious metal from countries including India.
Nitesh Shah, Head of Commodities and Macroeconomic Research at WisdomTree Europe, says: “We have entered 2026 amid a new wave of geopolitical risks. First, a US-driven regime change in Venezuela has altered the status quo. Venezuela is an oil-rich country with the world’s largest proven reserves, and the Trump administration has been vocal about accelerating oil production.”
Shah says the US involvement in Venezuela has sharpened market focus on US President Donald Trump’s intentions toward Greenland, where the administration has expressed interest in controlling the territory’s natural resources.
Meanwhile in Europe, stalled progress in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine kept local investors’ safe-haven gold ETF buying elevated.
Research from WisdomTree shows a clear correlation between reports of geopolitical unrest in the global media and a rise in gold prices.
Shah also points to Trump’s “repeated attacks on the US Federal Reserve” which includes repeated complaints about high interest rates and threats to fire Governor Lisa Cook and more recently Chair Jerome Powell, as instrumental in gold’s positive fortunes.
“These efforts to undermine the Fed’s leadership have been supportive for gold prices, as markets increasingly question the central bank’s independence,” Shah said.
Changes to India’s Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority rules allowing the nation’s retirement plans to allocate up to 1 per cent of assets to approved gold and silver ETFs is also driving up prices, Shah says, with India’s National Pension System assets exceeding USD177 billion, suggesting potential new allocations of up to USD1.7 billion.
“Even partial uptake would represent a meaningful new source of demand in an already tight gold market,” he says.
Indian pension funds add to a growing cohort of new institutional gold buyers. Chinese insurance companies became eligible investors in 2025, with potential demand estimated at 244 tonnes. In addition, stablecoin Tether has accumulated more than 115 tonnes of gold.
Shah says: “Taken together, ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, institutional demand and a weakening US dollar continue to reinforce gold’s strategic role as a portfolio diversifier in an increasingly unstable macroeconomic environment.”
