Silver has closed 2025 as the best-performing asset after a historic 26% surge in December. Yet market participants warn that this rally is not a replay of the Hunt brothers' blow‑off in 1980 or the QE panic in 2011.

Back then, with leverage removed, the price could fall back because the metal was available. Today, silver is in a persistent deficit, experiencing surging industrial demand and a tightening geopolitical grip on physical flows.

Deficits Make It Different 

In 1980, the Hunts used leverage to corner a relatively small futures market. Inventories still existed in size. When COMEX hiked margins and went to "liquidation only," longs were forced out, and the corner collapsed.

In 2011, ETF inflows and investment demand as a hedge against QE propelled the demand. Still, solar and industrial use were smaller, and above‑ground stocks and Western vaults could eventually meet demand once the panic cooled.

Today, these vaults are getting starved for physical ...