By Peter R Hann | December 27, 2025
I was planning on another long post about Silver, but I am somewhat burned out TBH.
So just a few things.
1. There is a physical shortage.
For the last 5 years, demand for physical is exceeded actual silver mined. It's not from retail hoarding coins. It's industrial users. When countries starting pushing EV mandates, whether it cars, solar panels etc, it ratcheted up demand for silver. That is how I really got turned on to silver instead of Gold back in 2020 when the Biden admin started serious pushing a "green" initiative. Imagine my surprise when Rostum Behnam "Tamped Down" on the January 2021 squeeze and Silver was held below $30 for the next 3 years.
That's when I seriously stopped looking at the Macro story and delved into the Bullion banks spoofing, borrowing from SLV to smash silver in illiquid times, the underperformance of PSLV because Wall Street shorted it to force Sprott to unload physical silver. Which then got me wondering, why is Wall Street so desperate for physical. Which drew me to China using the suppressed prices to move physical to Shanghai from London.
Which lead me to why China wanted silver so much (aside from historical reasons) and that lead me to see videos where solar panel farms are being put all over Chinese deserts.
I am old enough to remember the commodity spike in 2004-7 when China stockpiled materials ahead of the Beijing Olympics. It's one reason I in 2004 I called USD/CAD going to par and it reached it in 2007.
Well, what's happening now just isn't a repeat of that demand. Its more strategic this time given promotion of the BRIC's, the trade wars, the critical mineral controls. And I am still gob smacked the US just sat by for the last two decades and let China drain away silver and Gold stocks. Epic fail.
Anyway, back to the core topic. Demand exceeds supply and so then people will say, at $80 bucks people will recycle silver and it will flood in.
Ok. (a) Silver used for industry is not easy to recycle. Medical uses..nope, to small and expensive. Same with what's in phones. Car components..eh..maybe small amounts. Solar panels..those things have 20 year life cycles apparently.
So that leaves Mom's silverware and Dad's junk silver.
Except, a lot of that was handed in in 1980 and then in 2011. What's left is still at a backlog because there are not enough silver refiners. They are backlogged.
So, it will take years for supply from recycling to even contribute significantly to supply.
New mines? Most Silver is a by product from copper and zinc. You want more silver, you need copper high enough to get more copper extracted.
There are principal silver mines, but the mines in Mexico and South America are largely played out, takes money to get to the deeper stuff.
But Citadel has made a habit of shorting silver juniors so funding has been made very difficult.
But ok, say the mines can get the funding, it still takes years to get 100% operational and sending ore out consistently.
In the meantime, new demand is arising from players like Samsung and their Solid state EV battery.
So to everyone looking at RSI's and saying silver is going to reverse in a week and crash below 50, you just don't get the fundamental story is changing. This is a real physical supply shortage, and plus with Gold being bid by continued concern over fiat debasement, that will only reinforce the silver bid
There, and that was a short TED talk on Silver.