Silver Shock Explained — What’s Really Going On? 🥈⚠️
Silver just saw a historic ~32% intraday crash, the largest since 1980 — but the story doesn’t end there.
What’s catching attention is the extreme regional price divergence:
Shanghai spot: ~$122
US/Western spot: ~$85
That’s a ~44% premium for the same metal in China.
What this signals
Heavy selling pressure in Western markets is coming primarily from paper silver (futures), not physical supply.
COMEX is dominated by derivatives, where paper claims vastly exceed available physical metal, allowing price to move aggressively without real-world delivery stress.
Meanwhile, physical demand in Asia remains strong, keeping spot prices elevated in Shanghai.
Big picture This looks less like collapsing demand and more like a forced reset driven by leverage and futures positioning. When paper markets unwind fast, price can temporarily disconnect from physical reality.
Volatility like this usually marks stress in the system, not the end of the story. The gap between paper and physical prices is the signal to watch.
Markets don’t break quietly.
