OPEC Just Broke the Petrodollar — And Gold Knows It

One of America's strongest allies just left the organization that's been fixing oil prices since the 70s and told the US government it might start selling its oil in other currencies. And this isn't some conspiracy theory. This is Reuters, the Financial Times, Fortune magazine, everybody is reporting this. And while central banks, the guys who print all the money, are hoarding gold at a pace we haven't seen in modern history. By the end of this video, you'll understand the exact three-step framework I used to decode what's really happening to the dollar while gold is responding the way it is. And most importantly, how a regular investor can position for what's coming next. My name is Felix Prin. I'm an ex-investment banker. Winston here. Winston, sit up. Come on. Show your little face. This here of course is our research hound and our in-house gold analyst Winston. And our mission is very simple. Share the stuff with you that usually only gets shared with the investment bankers. And today's topic is exactly the kind of macro shift that Wall Street sees coming. They know what it means. So let's break it down for everybody else. So we're going to run through the framework. Step one, understanding what is actually the petro dollar. not some conspiracy version. The actual mechanics of how it works and why why it made America rich. We'll do that very quickly. Step two, three specific fractures that are breaking the machine right now. And then step three, where are the world's most powerful institutions actually putting their cash? And what does that tell us about asymmetric opportunities sitting right in front of us right now? Let's start with step one. You probably heard about the petro dollar, right? But let me explain it very briefly so you all understand what it means. It's important we have a baseline understanding here. If you write rewind back to 1974, um we've just gone through the oil shock. Arab oil producers had cut off supply to the US. Gas prices went through the roof. There were literally lines around the block from gas stations. So the US needed a plan. So enter Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, a very very good negotiator. He flies to Saudi Arabia and he works out an arrangement with the Saudi royal family. And and this is really important. There is no formal treaty. There is no contract with an expiration date. A lot of people online get confused about that, claiming it's a 50-year deal or something like that. No, it's not true. What actually happened was the US and Saudi Arabia signed a joint commission for economic cooperation. It was a handshake deal to work together. That was it. But the informal deal had three pillars to it. Pillar one, oil is priced in dollars. Dollars and dollars and only dollars till death do us part. So every barrel of oil sold anywhere in the world will be priced in dollars. And what that means mean is that every country on earth that wants to buy oil has to buy dollars first. creates a massive constant demand for US dollars. Pillar D, the money comes back home. All those dollars that Saudi Arabia and OPEC nations earn from selling dollars, well, they're going to recycle them back into the US economy by buying US debt bonds. So the US government could keep borrowing really cheaply because there's always a huge buyer standing by because you know in the Saudis someone's always buying oil from you and then pillar is in exchange for all of us. The US gave Gulf monarchies military protection, weapons and political support. So sort of a you know you scratch your back and and and we scratch ours. Sorry, the other way around. You you know what I'm saying? That's the machine. It's been running for 50 years. It's the single biggest reason the dollar became and stayed the world's reserve currency. So why does it matter to you? Because the dollar is the world's reserve currency. The US gets what economists call an exorbitant privilege. The US can import goods cheaper than everybody else. The US can run massive government deficits and still find buyers for its debts because interest rates stay lower than they otherwise would. It's like having a cheat code for the entire economy. And that cheat code is powered by oil. So what happens when the machine starts to break down? So we're going to get into next. But some of you are sitting here and going, "Okay, it's nice to understand the macro, but I want to go deeper on how to actually pick stocks or metals right now, this week, and next week. And I want to know what I'm doing." And if you're that person, if you're that person who's a more active, more serious investor, then I will teach you the trick. Not in this video because it would make this video like three hours long and I think that would be a little tedious for most people and the algorithm would kill me. But I'll run it for you live. And the benefit there is you can ask me questions live, too. So, we're going to run on this weekend literally a live session on how Wall Street is finding the next big investment opportunity right now. And I'm going to tell you what that opportunity is. I'm going to show you how I find it. But I'm also going to show you and teach you the process so that if you decide to go deeper into it, you'll be able to find the next opportunity in three months and six months and nine months and three years and 10 years. You teach it to your children and your grandchildren and the process doesn't change. The same process been around for 50 years. You join me for that live training. You go to felix.org/training. The link is down below in the description. Just click on it. You sign up for it. It is a free training. You just need to show up with a willingness to learn and pen and paper. I suggest. All right. Step two of the framework. We know what the machine is. We know what the petro dollar is. We're all on the same level. Brilliant. Let's talk about the three cracks that are breaking it apart. Crack number one is the UAE has just walked out of OPEC. The UAE is one of the most powerful oil producers. UA is one of the most powerful oil and gas producers on the planet. And it announced that it's officially leaving OPEC. Done. Walking out the door after 60 years of membership. Why did they leave? It comes down to one thing. Freedom. has been pouring money into expanding its oil production, but OPEC keeps telling them to produce less. So, they get quotas. Their quot is about three to three and a half million barrels. The UAE wants to produce 5 million barrels. So, it's like you built a factory that can make, you know, 5 million cars a year, but the people you're in business with tell you, "No, no, no, only make three." At some point you're like this isn't a great deal for them. But they also but they also joined the BRICS nations in 2024 who are building an alternative to the dollar. Yeah. This is a big shift and their very central bank stood up to the US Treasury and said we might be forced to shift our oil sales to remb. So they're saying we might use less dollars. Why? Because China is its single's largest customer. And with all the madness that's going on in the in the the Gulf right now, that might be quite a nice revenue stream for them. And Saudi is also in active negotiations with China for long-term oil contracts, right? We're talking 10 to 20 year deals, possibly priced in the Chinese remb. Of course, we all know about Russia. You know, they got properly kicked out of the the sort of Western Hemisphere. Um and India just made its first rupee payment. It's the Indian currency for UAE oil. So you have a dismantling of the dollar monopoly in the global oil trade happening right now confirmed not some crazy speculation. And then number three and this is where this gets interesting for your portfolio. We get closer to the auction opportunity here. Remember the first, do you remember pillar two of the petro dollar? Oil money gets recycled back into US debt, the American government debt. Yeah. Well, some of the biggest players in the world are now heading very very firmly for the exit. China's holdings of US debt has fallen by about 50%. Now, some allies like Japan and the UK have been buying more. So, it is not a universal dump. I don't want to give you guys a wrong impression here. But what really matters to me more mo more is what are what are the governments who are buying less and holding less dollars putting their money into gold. Yeah. After Russia's foreign currency reserves were frozen by the West, every central bank on the planet got a riskmanagement wakeup call. They realized if we hold our reserves and dollars or euros stored in western banks, those reserves can be seized with a phone call and that changed everything. We've seen records shattering gold buying ever since that Russia money grab. We're looking at about a thousand tons per year. And it isn't just the big boys. It's also Poland and Usbekiststan and Kazakhstan and all the other countries that are doing it. Now that brings us at least the patient of you to the opportunity and the opportunity is and the opportunity is follow the smart money. This is where we connect the geopolitics to your actual portfolio. Gold didn't just go up recently. It went absolutely nuts since the beginning of the the breakout point. It went up about 60% or so. It's down a little bit, but it's still gone up pretty pretty significantly. And if you understand what what I'm drawing here means, you are in the minority of the 0.1% of investors and traders and why that was the moment where everything turned green for us. And if you don't join me on Saturday, I'll break it down for you in terms that, you know, a 10-year-old can understand. Not because I think you're a 10-year-old, but I think we all deserve some simple financial education. And we've seen some pretty strong staying power in gold, despite the fact that countries like Turkey have been selling gold because they were hit by the Iran shock and the rumor that Gulf nations are selling gold because they're not getting any dollars. Why not? Because no one can buy any oil or gas for them because the highway is closed. You know, the straight of humus. So, let me give you the let me give you the 3Ds. The 3Ds of why go gold gold in my opinion structurally wins. And again, I'm not a registered financial advisor. You got to come to your own decisions. It's just my opinion. But if you look at it from an institutional lens, the gold thesis is this. So, if you really remember nothing from this video except for this, remember these three words. Dolorization. Everything we talked about the shift by central banks away from the dollar into gold. the shift in the oil sellers to sell in other currencies around the dollar. That's a shift away from the dollar. That's your number one, the dilization. The second is debasement. The US government has been running massive deficits for ever and every dollar of that debt gets added to the pile and it dilutes every dollar already in circulation. How does that work? They're printing money, right? They're printing money to buy their own debt. Gold, on the other hand, can't be printed, can't be debased like the dollar. And then three, it's just diversification. We're moving money into a world of geopolitical fragmentation, polite way of putting it. Europe's rearming. The Middle East is doing whatever the Middle East is doing. Trade is shifting. And countries are waking up and saying just holding all of our wealth and dollar is is a risk. It's a concentration risk. What can I own and put it in my basement so only I have access to it? Gold. Gold has no nationality, no counterparty. It's been a store of value for 5,000 years. It's not about being, you know, a gold bug or a doomsday prepper, although I think both have some merit quite frankly. It is about portfolio construction, an era of massive uncertainty and the central banks. So, how do we position ourselves? What do we actually do with this information? Well, you could buy physical gold if you want to. You could buy gold ETFs. It's much easier, right? You don't have to insure it, hold it, you know, protect with a shotgun. Um, gold miners are also an interesting play. Why? Because they are a leveraged play on gold. and we had a really nice run up with um last year and now quite a few of them have actually just been lagging this gold rally. Here's one for example, NEM. We can talk about that on Saturday live. It's not quite ripe yet, but it's looking like it could be it could be ripe shortly and it's a way to potentially maximize returns if your risk management is really really tight. But the big picture is this. Dollar isn't going to go away anytime soon. it isn't going to zero. Uh the US has the biggest stock market in the world and and many reasons why people want to invest in the US. But this unchallenged monopoly of the dollar that is fading and once you understand the system and how that's benefited the US the last 50 years and if that system changes and shifts how therefore the system changes and therefore you need to change well you're ahead of most people and that's really what this is all about. So, if you want to go deeper, join me at felix.org/training on Saturday. We're going to go into the specific ad rules. We're going to run through all the case studies and we're going to look at what's the opportunity now and how can you find the opportunity in 3 months, 6 months, nine months, three years, 10 years, and so on and then teach them to your children. That's the the offer. Fenix transfer class training. It is a free live training that we hold. It's going to be fun. It's going to be probably about two hours long, so carve out some time. Bring a pen and paper and if you think a friend of yours might benefit from it, send in the link to I wish you all the best. Donald Trump just signed an executive order that's about to redirect trillions of dollars into a sector that most investors are completely ignoring. Everyone's watching.