The Chinese have always been in love with gold. And this year especially China is taking several steps to rattle gold markets.

“I think what the Chinese are trying to do is creating a real market that reflects supply and demand for physical gold,” says Mikhailovich. Because of the skewed relationship between paper and physical, this will very likely also lead to higher prices for physical, bypassing the futures trading on the New York Futures Exchange Comex and the obscure price setting mechanism at the LBMA.