It’s a common misconception that the world’s major central banks and monetary authorities own large quantities of gold bars. Most of them do not. Instead, this gold is owned by the sovereign states that have entrusted it to the respective nation’s central bank, and the central banks are merely acting as guardians of the gold. Tracing the ownership question a step further, what are sovereign states? A sovereign state is an entity with legal personality that is represented by one government. And with each government representing the people of that sovereign state, in essence, the large gold hordes managed by the central banks are in fact pools of gold owned by the state for the benefit of its citizens.