SILVER MARKET FRACTURE: TWO PRICES, ONE METAL
January 1, 2026.
Silver is trading at three different prices — on the same day, for the same metal.
Tokyo: $130
Shanghai: $80
New York: $71
Same ounce. Same purity. Same metal.
Only one of these prices is real.
China Just Locked the Vault
China has officially tightened control over silver exports.
Export licenses now required
Only 44 firms approved
Minimum 80-ton annual production to qualify
Result: ~60% of global refined silver supply ring-fenced
The metal is no longer freely moving. Physical supply just became geopolitical.
Why This Matters
In normal markets, price gaps vanish fast.
Buy low → ship → sell high.
But this spread has remained open for weeks.
Why?
Because there is no metal available to move.
Shanghai inventories near decade lows
COMEX registered silver down 70% since 2020
Over 820 million ounces consumed beyond mine supply in 5 years
That’s an entire year of global production gone
The Smart Money Has Already Moved
US banks are now net long silver for the first time in history.
They’ve stopped fighting physical demand.
They’re positioning ahead of repricing.
As Elon Musk put it:
This is not good.
He’s right — for paper markets.
Paper vs Physical
The “silver price” you see on screens is not the price of silver.
It’s the price of settling leveraged paper contracts.
Shanghai shows what silver costs when factories need metal.
New York shows what silver costs when traders need liquidity.
Two markets. Two prices.
Only one reflects reality.
What Comes Next
If this divergence continues, Western spot pricing must reprice violently.
$90 silver before March 31 — or this post gets deleted.
The door just closed.
The reset has already started.
Screenshot this.$BTC $BNB $ETH #Silver
#SilverSqueeze
#SilverMarket
#PreciousMetals
#Commodities
