Garlinghouse Cited Dutch Gold, and London Got the Bars

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said on September 4 that crypto can store and move value instantly after De Nederlandsche Bank spent months shifting about 86 tonnes of gold toward London. He called the episode an “ideal use case” for digital rails and put the slice at $11 billion.

The Dutch central bank was not trying to invent a new rail. It was putting more metal into the vault where gold already changes owners when a name changes on a screen.

London Now Holds the Largest Slice of Dutch Gold

De Nederlandsche Bank said on September 2 that it had improved the tradability of its gold reserves by moving metal from New York and Ottawa into London between March and August 2026. About 86 tonnes left a combined stock of about 313 tonnes that had sat in the United States and Canada. The full Dutch holding is 612.4 tonnes, valued at €72.2 billion at the end of 2025.

London’s share rose from 18.1% to 32.1%, which is now the largest single location, just above the 30.8% that still sits at DNB’s cash centre in Zeist. New York fell from 31.3% to 18.5%. Ottawa went from 19.7% to 18.5%. The 86 tonnes are about 14.0% of the whole pile.

Governor Olaf Sleijpen tied the work to “increasing geopolitical unrest” and crisis planning. Gold held with the Bank of England, DNB said, “must meet modern international trade standards and is regarded as the world’s most easily tradable gold.” Metal in New York and Ottawa “cannot be utilised as quickly and directly in such a situation.”

With this relocation, we have improved the tradability of our gold reserves. We expect that we will never need to use them, but we do need to strengthen our resilience and preparedness.

Olaf Sleijpen, Governor, De Nederlandsche Bank, September 2 statement

That last line is easy to skip if the story is only about speed. DNB still wanted the bars in a specific basement. A larger London share, the bank said, “strengthens the function of gold as an anchor of trust.”

The 59-Tonne Sale That Did the Heavy Lifting

Garlinghouse wrote that “~70% of it never actually left the ground” and “was sold in NYC and repurchased in London.” DNB’s own account matches the shape of that claim. The bank said the relocation was largely done by selling about 59 tonnes in New York and buying metal in London that meets international market standards. About 59 tonnes of 86 is 68.6%, which is the figure behind his “~70%.”

WHERE DUTCH GOLD SAT BEFORE AND AFTER THE MOVE

The percentages add to 99.9 because the bank rounded. Zeist’s share did not rise even though bars physically entered the Netherlands, because a matching amount then left for London.

HOW THE 86 TONNES CHANGED CITIES

• The New York sale: DNB sold about 59 tonnes in New York and bought London metal that meets international market standards.
• The Atlantic haul: More than 27 tonnes moved as bars from the United States and Canada to Zeist.
• The Zeist swap: A similar quantity of market-standard gold then went from Zeist to London, which the bank said avoided remelting bars.

DNB said combining the sale with the physical legs spread the risks of moving a large quantity of gold. The bars that did fly were not a failure of planning. They were how the bank kept Zeist’s share flat while feeding London with metal that already met the standard the London market wants.

674 Tonnes Came Home, and London Still Got a Share

Garlinghouse reached for Germany’s earlier haul as proof that the old system crawls. The Bundesbank completed its gold transfer process on August 23, 2017, about three years ahead of a 2020 target set in 2013. The plan moved 300 tonnes from New York and 374 tonnes from Paris, 674 tonnes in all, into Frankfurt.

GERMANY’S GOLD HAUL FROM NEW YORK AND PARIS

1. 2013: Transfers 32 tonnes from Paris and 5 tonnes from New York, 37 tonnes in total.
2. 2014: Transfers 35 tonnes from Paris and 85 tonnes from New York, 120 tonnes.
3. 2015: Transfers 111 tonnes from Paris and 99 tonnes from New York, 210 tonnes.
4. 2016: Transfers 105 tonnes from Paris and 111 tonnes from New York, 216 tonnes, finishing the New York leg.
5. August 23, 2017: Transfers the last 91 tonnes from Paris and closes the Paris depot.

When those shipments ended, Frankfurt held 1,710 tonnes, or 50.6% of Germany’s 3,378 tonnes. The New York Fed still held 1,236 tonnes, or 36.6%. The Bank of England still held 432 tonnes, or 12.8%. Germany brought metal home for public confidence and still left a London stock in place because London is a trading centre. The Dutch move runs the other way. It sends more metal into that same trading centre, and it leaves Zeist unchanged at 30.8%.

Carl-Ludwig Thiele, then a Bundesbank executive board member, said the storage plan closed about three years ahead of the 2020 aim. Inspectors in Frankfurt, the bank said, found no problems with authenticity, fineness, or weight. The German episode was a sovereignty project with a market footnote. The Dutch episode is a market project with a sovereignty footnote.

Gold in the Bank of England Already Moves by Name

The Bank of England says it is the second-largest gold custodian in the world, after the New York Fed, with around 400,000 bars in nine underground vaults. It stores the United Kingdom’s reserves for HM Treasury and holds allocated metal for other central banks and some commercial firms. Allocated means the customer keeps title to specific bars, not a claim on a pool. The Bank says it owns only two bars, both in its museum.

Its own explainer is the line that cuts through the crypto argument. When a customer trades gold at the Bank, the metal usually does not move. Instead, the name of the owner will change on the Bank’s system. That is book-entry transfer for allocated bullion, inside a market DNB just paid months to join more deeply.

LONDON’S GOLD PILE AT THE END OF AUGUST

• Vault total: The London Bullion Market Association put 9,632 tonnes of gold in London vaults at the end of August 2026, including commercial vaults and the Bank of England.
• Dollar value: That stock was valued at $1.4 trillion, or about 770,571 bars on the Association’s 12.5 kg convention.
• Month change: Holdings were up 1.03% on the prior month.
• Dutch slice: London’s new 32.1% of 612.4 tonnes is the first time that city is DNB’s largest single location.

DNB said a more even split among North America, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands also spreads risk. The operational prize is still London. If the bank ever had to sell in a hurry, it wants bars that already sit where the physical market clears.

Garlinghouse Tied the Shift to Crypto Rails

Garlinghouse quoted a CNBC post about the 86 tonnes, then wrote that central banks are “still moving value the way they did in the 1940s.” Between Germany’s 2013 plan and the Dutch operation, he wrote, crypto went from “a $1.5B experiment to a $2.7T asset class.” He asked why the best way to move value is not to move it, then answered his own question.

This an ideal use case for crypto storing and then moving value instantly, securely, around the world, at little to no cost. How are people still fighting this?!

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO, Ripple, on X, September 4

https://x.com/bgarlinghouse/status/2096005795787702513

He followed that post by pointing to a Bank for International Settlements research test on the XRP Ledger, listing low fees, fast settlement, and a “proven track record.” The working paper those comments rest on is a proof of concept for hashing official statistics on XRPL DevNet so users can check a dataset has not been altered. It is not a live rail for reserve gold. Treating a statistics prototype as a substitute for allocated bullion in Threadneedle Street is a leap the paper itself does not make.

Ripple already sells the payments version of this pitch to banks, including a regional bank payments deal in Korea that left the XRP question open. Garlinghouse has also been in the policy room, including a White House crypto session with other exchange chiefs. The Dutch gold post takes that same rail argument and aims it at reserve managers who just spent six months rearranging vault geography.

Tokenized-gold demos on the XRP Ledger, which circulated around his post, show a different product. A token can swap in seconds while the metal stays in a vault. DNB’s statement is about holding bars that meet London market standards, in the vault that makes those bars easiest to trade in a crisis. Ownership that travels is useful. It is not what the Dutch bank said it bought.

Why Did the Metal Go to London?

DNB sent the metal to London because it wants gold it can sell fast in a crisis, and it says Bank of England bars are the easiest in the world to trade, unlike stocks parked in New York or Ottawa. The bank still does not expect to use the reserves. It moved them anyway, citing unrest and the need to be ready.

Location is the feature, not the bug. London is the global centre for gold trading, the Bank of England says, and custody there is how it gives central banks access to that market. Customers can trade with one another at the Bank. The bars often stay on the same shelf. That is the incumbent version of “the best way to move value isn’t to actually move it,” the riddle Garlinghouse posed as if it had no answer inside the gold market.

New York remains a major custodian, which is why it still holds 18.5% of the Dutch stock and 36.6% of Germany’s. Ottawa is now matched with New York at 18.5% for the Netherlands. Zeist keeps a domestic share that did not budge. The only location that gained in a serious way is London, and it gained because DNB wanted tradability, not a new asset class.

Crypto can settle a payment in seconds. A central bank that calls gold “the ultimate reserve asset” for “extreme systemic risks” is buying a different kind of insurance. Sleijpen said the bank expects never to use the metal. The six-month operation was still worth doing so the unused asset would sit on the right ledger, in the right city, under the right bar standard.

The Custody Systems Bitcoin Still Has to Beat

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, speaking at Bitcoin Asia in Hong Kong in late August 2026, made a parallel claim with a slower timetable. He told the audience Bitcoin would become more important than gold and that the gap in value had already narrowed to about tenfold. He also said large countries have built valuation, reserve, and trading systems around bullion, so a shift would take years.

WHERE THE ARGUMENTS SPLIT

• Garlinghouse: Months spent rearranging Dutch gold, and years spent on Germany’s haul, show that value still moves as it did in the 1940s, which he calls an ideal case for crypto.
• Sleijpen and DNB: The same months were spent putting more gold into London so it can be traded faster in a crisis, even though the bank expects never to deploy it.
• Zhao: Gold’s edge is the custody and reserve machinery states already run, and replacing that machinery at scale will not happen overnight.

Zhao’s caution sits closer to what DNB actually did. The Dutch bank did not ask whether a token could move faster than a plane. It asked which vault lets it sell bars into a deep physical market if “extreme systemic risks” arrive. The winner of that question is the Bank of England’s allocated stock, now the largest slice of Dutch gold, inside a London vault system that held 9,632 tonnes at the end of August.

Garlinghouse is right that flying bullion is a 20th-century chore, and DNB’s own 59-tonne sale shows the bank already prefers not to fly what it can replace through the market. The part the crypto thread keeps missing is the destination. The Netherlands spent March to August getting more of its unused crisis asset onto a ledger that already transfers gold by changing a name, in a city that now holds more Dutch metal than Zeist, New York, or Ottawa.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of public statements by company executives and central banks, and it is for information only. It is not investment, trading, or reserve-management advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy or sell gold, XRP, Bitcoin, or any other asset. Readers who are considering any financial decision should consult a qualified investment adviser or licensed financial planner who can review their own circumstances. Figures, vault shares, and product claims reflect the cited statements and datasets as of the dates given in the piece and can change as banks, markets, and companies update their positions.