While on its own, gold open interest - which merely represents the total potential claims on gold if exercised - is hardly exciting, as we have shown previously it has to be observed in conjunction with the physical gold that "backs" such potential delivery requests, also known as the "coverage ratio" of deliverable gold.

It is here that things get a little out of hand, because as the chart below shows, all else equal, the 43.5 million ounces of gold open interest and the record low 351,519 ounces of registered gold imply that as of Friday's close there was a whopping 123.8 ounces in potential paper claims to every ounces of physical gold.

This is an all time record high, and surpasses the previous period record seen in January 2014 following the JPM gold vault liquidation.