Good question, and the answer reveals how market cap works differently than most people think.

The $3 trillion did not move anywhere. Market cap is price times total supply. When price drops, the market cap shrinks without anyone actually transacting $3 trillion. The marginal seller — maybe a few billion in actual volume — repriced the entire float.

Think of it like real estate: if one house on your block sells for 20% less, every house on the block just lost value on paper. Nobody moved money. The reference price changed.

What actually moved was the much smaller amount of real capital that changed hands at the new lower price. Some rotated into USD, some into treasuries, some likely into risk assets. But the vast majority of the $3 trillion simply stopped existing — unrealized gains that evaporated.

#gold #economics #markets #macro