At the end of 2021, 21 metric tons of gold were withdrawn from custody at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It is as yet unclear who collected the gold.
Fed Vault in Manhattan
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York operates the world’s largest gold depository. The bank holds the metal reserves of a number of countries under the streets of Manhattan. Parts of Germany’s gold reserves are also still booked there. According to the Bundesbank, there are still 1,236 tons of our gold in the famous Goldvault, which corresponds to 36.6 percent of Germany’s gold reserves.
Gold withdrawn
But in recent years, states repeatedly withdrew gold from New York to keep it at home. For example, Germany brought a total of 300 tons back home by 2016. In addition, Hungary, Turkey, Austria and the Netherlands also had gold stored abroad delivered home in recent years.
How much gold is stored abroad at the New York Fed can be found out from the monthly accounting reports. In these, the precious metal is listed as „earmarked gold“. Accordingly, it is always booked at a rate of 42.22 US dollars per ounce, in line with the goldprice in 1973.
21 tons disappeared
According to the data from the New York Fed office, the value of these gold holdings at the end of December was $7.76 billion. This gives a reported gold quantity of 183,799,147 ounces, or 5,716.79 metric tons.
At the end of October, the figure was 184,486,025 ounces or 5,738.15 tonnes. Thus, the latest outflow was 21.36 tons. By now, it is not known who might have withdrawn his gold bars from New York.
