Still don't see the point of gold here other than may be sanctions evasion. The exporting nations have to accumulate Dollars first to buy gold.

And central banks buy gold off budget unlike most spending which has to be debated and appropriated by the legislature.

Central banks hoard it and pump up the price. If a central bank bought up real estate and didn't even rent it out, it'll raise questions from the public on why cb is hoarding homes. Yet no one cares when it's gold. People even call gold hoarding to be prudent.

Heck, even copper buying by a central bank using its infinite local currency capacity or using limited foreign currency reserves would be scrutinised heavily. Yet gold is fine. Palladium has similar properties to gold, why not hoard palladium?

China will accept palladium as collateral and give you Yuan for it. You ultimately pay in Yuan or similar currencies if you are a sanctioned country.

And gold itself is marked in $ terms in the books so the more gold CBs lock up the higher the % due to valuation effect even though nothing was created.