After the late Western Han Dynasty, the records of using gold in history books decreased obviously, and the reason is still controversial.

One theory is that Buddhism was introduced at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and a large amount of gold was used to shape the golden body of Buddha statues, write inscriptions and cast utensils, which became Buddhist treasures. This statement is inconsistent with the time and overestimates the amount of money spent on temple buildings.

Another way of saying it is that emperors and nobles are extravagant and wasteful, and they try their best to collect gold, cast ornaments and utensils, and bury them after death, or bury them in large quantities in the war at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. This statement has not been confirmed by the discovery of tombs and cellars in the Han Dynasty.

There is also a saying that in the Western Han Dynasty, in order to suppress commerce and restrict gold mining, coupled with the exhaustion of shallow gold mining, it was more difficult to dig deep gold mines and the mining cost increased, so the output dropped sharply, resulting in a decrease in supply. However, the reduction of mining does not mean the reduction of gold stock in real life. The gold rush in various places has not completely ended since the Eastern Han Dynasty, and gold production has continued throughout the ages.

At present, the authoritative view is the theory of gold outflow. With the rise of foreign trade in the Western Han Dynasty, many countries in the western regions used gold as a means of payment for purchasing spices and jewelry. Although it is difficult to accurately estimate the trade surplus or the scale of the surplus in the Han Dynasty, there should be no doubt that gold and silver flow among countries as international currencies.

In recent years, some people have discussed this issue from a new angle. It is considered that the weighing unit gold (left gold and right gold) of gold in the pre-Qin period is different from the constant unit gold. Through calculation, it is considered that the difference between them is 63.6 times. The conclusion is that tens of thousands of gold in the pre-Qin period, whether lost or not.