Gold’s conditional path to 2026 – Inflation, deflation or crisis scenario

A useful way to understand where gold and silver may be heading is to step back from charts entirely and examine history through the lens of monetary regime change. Between 1873 and 1935, the global monetary system underwent a profound transformation that still echoes today. During this period, governments systematically abandoned silver as a monetary anchor, moving first toward gold monometallism and eventually toward managed fiat systems. The so-called “Crime of 1873” in the United States, followed by similar moves across Europe and Asia, was not driven by a lack of silver demand, but by the opposite problem: silver supply was expanding faster than governments could control within a fixed monetary framework. When monetary metals fall out of alignment with political control, states do not adapt to the metal in fact the metal is abandoned.

That historical precedent matters now because we are once again approaching a point of tension between real demand and institutional structure. In the late 19th century, silver’s demonetization did not occur because silver was useless; it occurred because the system could not tolerate a metal whose supply and price dynamics conflicted with centralized control. The eventual outcome was not silver’s disappearance, but its relegation to an industrial and secondary monetary role, while gold briefly retained primacy until gold itself became inconvenient and was partially suspended in the 1930s.

From a cyclical perspective, this matters because monetary history does not move in straight lines; it oscillates between discipline and discretion. When real demand for hard assets materially outperforms available supply, and when that demand is driven not by speculation but by structural necessity, markets eventually force a reconsideration of price, role, and relevance. Gann himself emphasized that markets resolve imbalance not through argument, but through repricing.

Applying that lens to the present cycle, gold’s behavior from late 2024 through 2025 already signals a transition. The rapid advance from 2583 to 4550 compressed multiple years of price discovery into a single cycle, suggesting that gold is responding not merely to inflation narratives, but to systemic demand for monetary certainty. If this demand continues to outperform mine supply, recycled supply, and paper liquidity then higher equilibrium prices are not speculative fantasies, but logical outcomes of imbalance.

Under such a condition, a move toward 5400 in 2026 becomes structurally plausible rather than extraordinary. That level corresponds not only to extended Gann price harmonics from the 2024 low, but also to a regime-shift repricing rather than a trend continuation. It would imply that time has completed its corrective function and that price is once again being allowed to expand. Importantly, this does not require panic or hyperinflation; it requires only sustained real demand exceeding deliverable supply within a constrained system.

Looking further ahead, projections toward 18,000 gold over the coming years should not be interpreted as linear forecasts, but as long-cycle potential analogous to previous monetary resets. Gold has historically repriced by multiples when confidence in monetary frameworks erodes and is rebuilt at a higher nominal level. Such moves tend to occur over years, punctuated by violent corrections, not smooth appreciation. In that context, the question is not whether such numbers are “too high,” but whether the underlying system can resolve its contradictions without allowing price to do the work.

Silver, meanwhile, occupies a more complex position—much as it did between 1873 and 1935. Its dual role as both monetary metal and industrial input makes it more volatile, but also more sensitive to real-world constraints. If silver demand—driven by energy, electronics, and industrial electrification—continues to exceed mine supply, then a price zone around 112 is not only sensible but conservative within a full-cycle framework. Historically, silver does not lead; it lags and then accelerates, often overshooting fair value once structural shortages become undeniable.

Should supply constraints intensify further—through underinvestment, geopolitical fragmentation, or regulatory bottlenecks—both metals could extend beyond these projections. History shows that when governments and markets lose the ability to smooth imbalances incrementally, they resolve them abruptly. That is precisely what occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it is why those periods remain instructive rather than obsolete.

The key takeaway is not that gold must reach 5400, or silver must reach 112, or that 18,000 gold is inevitable. The takeaway is that cycles repeat when conditions repeat. When real demand persistently outperforms supply, when paper claims multiply faster than physical availability, and when political structures struggle to adapt, price becomes the mechanism of adjustment. Gann understood this not as prophecy, but as arithmetic applied to human systems.

In that sense, the current market does not resemble a speculative bubble so much as a late-stage transition. Whether 2026 becomes a year of renewed expansion or prolonged digestion will depend on whether time successfully rebalances price or whether demand forces another repricing sooner than institutions expect. Either way, the roadmap is being written not by opinion, but by the same forces that shaped the abandonment of silver standards more than a century ago.