Central banks and governments are loading up on gold as pressure builds to make it a neutral asset that balances world trade — bullish for gold, bearish for the dollar's dominance.

• The dollar-based system is seen as broken, and the same fix keeps coming up: back global trade with a neutral asset instead of the dollar.
• Gold is the only asset that has ever done that job, and big names from the World Bank to the IMF have argued for years that countries should shift reserves into it.
• The catch is that gold is too cheap today to actually balance trade, so the price would have to climb far higher.
• One estimate says gold would need to hit roughly $38,000 an ounce to balance the huge trade gap with China — many times today's price.
• The irony: the U.S. designed this dollar system, and now it's on the losing end and making the same case China made back in 2009.

Outlook: Expect governments to keep buying gold, with more talk of it becoming a reserve anchor and steady upward pressure on the price.