Central banks are buying gold at a record pace, a signal that big players expect gold to matter far more in the future — good for gold holders, and a warning sign about paper money.

• China's central bank bought gold for 20 months straight, even loading up when the price was crashing 30%.
• World central banks together are buying about 1,000 tons of gold a year, double the pace of the decade before, and almost nobody is selling.
• Poland, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and China are all stacking up the metal.
• The idea: gold could become the neutral asset countries settle in, so China wants its people and vaults holding the real metal, not paper claims.
• The US is now shipping record amounts of physical gold to China, a jump that started right after US and Chinese officials met late last year.

Outlook: Expect central banks to keep buying and gold to keep flowing east, with talk of a future "revaluation" that would push gold much higher.