As we sit at silver breaking $81 and still bouncing around with high volatility and high core industrial demand, we have to ask the question, what could crash silver pricing?
You know, what is it that could happen, black swan event that could bring silver back to $30 an ounce?
And although that seems very unlikely, well, there are some possible scenarios that could do it.
But in order to understand that, we have to understand why is silver so high right now.
Well, in this case, it's a classic explanation of supply and demand because there's core industrial demand for silver.
The price increase that you're seeing right now is not a result of speculation.
It's not a result of a Hunt Brothers scenario like 1980.
It's also not the result of consumers, that is, end users, desiring the metal for monetary purposes.
Although that element does exist, it's a very minor element.
It's not the primary driving factor of what we're witnessing here.
Not by a long shot.
So what is?
Well, it's industrial demand.
Industrial demand, because silver, of course, has unique special properties.
It's the most reflective metal.
It's highly, highly conductive.
I think maybe even the most conductive.
It is a very special material that has properties that cannot be matched by any other element.
And thus, in certain processes, in certain parts, silver is irreplaceable.
So why is silver demand so high?
Because it's used in things that are receiving a lot of investment right now.
Solar panels, because data centers need power.
Solar panels are the fastest way to get that power online.
And the data centers themselves use a lot of silver in their components.
Silver is used in electronics.
It's used in the defense industry, weapons, cruise missiles, etc.
And that's receiving a lot of funding.
Silver is used in medical devices, telecommunications, and so many other areas, and robotics and drones to some extent as well as mobile phones.
So yeah, very high demand for silver.
Now, until today, that demand was met by excess silver in the system.
In other words, sort of silver stockpiles that had existed for a long, long time.
There really wasn't a shortage of silver until just last year.
There was enough silver to go around, you know, especially during COVID.
There wasn't a lot of buildout happening.
It was really, I would say, the rise of AI over the last few years that has pushed the demand for silver through the roof.
And that combined with the wars, you know, the wars in the Middle East, wars with Ukraine and Russia, etc., and weapons purchasing by Taiwan, you name it, this has resulted in now unprecedented silver demand.
And for a while, the excess silver buffer in the system was just being drained.
That happened last year.
Hundreds of millions of ounces of silver that were extra.
Well, they're gone.
There are no extra ounces of silver at this point.
Now, the silver can only come from two places.
That is, number one, out of the ground, or number two, you got to convince people who have silver to give it up, to sell it.
The only two places where you can get silver.
So why can't we get more of it out of the ground?
Well, because silver mining is not what you think it is.
You don't dig a mine and go down there and find a bunch of silver in the walls of the mine.
Look, silver, you know, and dig out the silver and bring it up.
Here it is.
You know, three nines pure silver.
We found it.
It's in the ground.
Doesn't work that way.
Silver is actually mined.
Typically, there's trace amounts of silver with other ores like iron or copper.
Basically, it looks like a bunch of dirty rocks coming out of the ground.
Okay?
Dirty rocks.
And then what do you do with those dirty rocks?
Well, you grind them up.
You grind them up into a powder, almost like a rock flour, you know, like cooking flour or what have you.
And then you take this flour and you use a variety of techniques, put them in large vats, you put some chemicals in there and some solvents, and you use bubbles, air bubbles injected into the vats, and then it leaves the impurities behind, and you get a higher concentration of silver on top.
And you scrape that off.
It's got silver in it and some other things.
It's not pure yet.
Even then, you can't use that as silver.
You know, you can't make coins out of that.
It's not pure enough.
You can't use it for electronics yet, not pure enough.
So what do you do?
You use a process of electrolysis.
Electrolysis.
So during electrolysis, then you have a couple of plates suspended in some deionized water with some conductivity from some electrolytes that are put into the water.
And then you run a current through the plates and you cause silver ions to be to it to escape from one impure plate and to be attracted to the pure plate.
And this is how you can get another, I don't know, couple of orders of magnitude of purity out of the whole thing.
And I'm simplifying it, obviously.
But the reason I know about this is because it's very similar to how we make colloidal silver.
We use silver plates, we use electrolysis, we use deionized water, etc.
So then you end up with very pure silver, like 0.999, or sometimes you can get 49s.
Just depends on how many times you want to do it, how long you want to wait.
Every order of magnitude of purity costs a lot more money.
So that's why nobody has five nines silver, because five nines silver would be way more expensive than four nines silver, which is also more expensive than three nines silver.
So purity equals cost.
And if you want like six nines silver, that's going to cost you thousands of dollars an ounce, by the way.
So that's not really used very often, except in certain maybe aerospace industry applications.
So anyway, once you get the silver purity you want, then you can use it in electronics and medical devices.
Then you can use it to mint silver coins, etc.
But this whole process, even getting it out of the ground, there are almost no silver mines that are just dedicated to silver.
There are a few, but primarily the silver coming out of the ground comes out with other things that are being mined at the same time, like copper or zinc or iron in some cases.
As a result, when silver prices go higher, let's say silver hits $100 an ounce, well, the mines that are producing silver, they're not increasing their mining of zinc just because silver went up.
They may not even be able to increase their mining throughput.
They may already be at their limit.
And some copper mines are even closing down.
So there will be less silver going into the market because, you know, you're not mining the other things.
So as a result, the amount of silver that's being mined every year is pretty stable.
It's not quite fixed, but it's close to it, and it's hard to increase it, very hard.
And there won't be a silver mining response to the increased price of silver.
You'll still get the same amount of silver out of the ground, regardless of what the price is.
So you know how normally in a supply demand situation, for example, if car tires could be sold for $500 each, well, there'd be a bunch of companies getting into the car tire business, wouldn't they?
Like, well, heck, we'll make car tires.
We know how to vulcanize rubber.
We'll make, I mean, for $500 a tire, yeah, I'll make all the tires you want.
Because in a normal supply-demand situation, then the producers come online to meet the increased demand, and then that brings prices back down.
You get a bunch of people making car tires at $500 a tire, and then you have a glut of car tires, and then the prices fall, right?
So it's a self-homeostasis situation, right?
It balances itself out.
Silver doesn't work that way.
Silver goes to $100 an ounce, and all the mines producing silver, you call them up, like, can you produce more silver?
They're like, we don't really produce silver on purpose.
I mean, this is a copper mine.
Silver is the byproduct.
So no, the answer is no.
See, so there won't be any extra supply, not really.
Maybe a very tiny amount of extra, but again, the supply is pretty much the same year after year.
But you've got all this money going into the industrial uses of silver, all these producers that need more and more silver.
And that's why they've been taking physical delivery on the contracts on the COMEX or out of the LBMA.
And that's why some companies like Samsung are doing deals directly with silver mines to say, we'll just buy your silver.
We'll buy the Doray, you know, the rough.
It's not quite raw rock, but it's, I think, the next step in that process.
We'll buy that stuff from you.
We'll find our own refiners.
You know, we'll refine it ourselves if we have to.
We'll use chopsticks and lighters or whatever we have to do to get the silver out.
I'm exaggerating with the chopsticks, but anyway, you get the idea.
So then, in addition to taking physical delivery of the paper contracts, what else happens is all these companies doing deals directly with mines that produce silver.
That reduces the amount of silver being put onto the open market.
So now that actually worsens the silver shortage for everybody else.
And then on top of that, you have these companies that absolutely need the silver at any price.
They start acquiring and stockpiling all the silver they can.
And as David Morgan explained in a recent interview, he says that moves silver from soft hands to hard hands.
So soft hands would be speculators who are just buying and selling silver because they want to make money on it.
They don't really need the silver.
It's not critical to their business.
You know, the speculators.
And at the right price, they're willing to let it go, take the profits.
But the hard hands, those are the companies that absolutely need the silver to make their products, like Samsung's new battery technology, the silver carbon anode technology, whatever that's called, solid-state batteries.
They must have silver.
So when they get silver and they are stockpiling silver or taking physical delivery, do you think they're willing to let it go at a higher price just to make money on the silver?
No, they're not in the speculation business.
They're not interested in making money from silver doubling in price.
They're interested in selling their core product that uses a tiny amount of silver.
They want to sell their batteries or their solar panels or their cruise missiles or whatever it is they make.
That's what they want to do.
So, of course, they're never going to sell their silver, which means that no matter what the price is, you know, $200 an ounce, $500 an ounce, no matter what the price, they're not letting go.
They need it.
Now, so that's in essence what's driving the price of silver through the roof right now, currently at $81 an ounce and soon headed for $100 an ounce, probably.
What could collapse this?
Well, you'd have to have a global collapse in silver demand.
A global collapse in silver demand would require a global collapse in the demand for these industrial products that I've just mentioned.
A collapse in demand of solar panels, of defense industry, of mobile phones, whatever, electronics, data centers, GPUs, you name it.
What could collapse global demand for all those things?
Well, a global depopulation event.
Maybe another global plandemic.
Maybe if a giant meteor slams into the earth and destroys like a third of the planet, that's in the book of Revelation, you know, and kills half the people.
Would that reduce demand for silver?
Yes, by about half, it turns out.
World war, nuclear war, cyber attack, power grid failure that's sustained, or the Skynet scenario, you know, Terminator robots rise up or whatever.
Although that's probably science fiction, if the AI systems wanted to kill humanity, they would just turn off the power grid.
They don't really need robots to run around, turn off the power grid.
Humans will kill themselves.
Or they could do something like, oh, I don't know, introduce a vaccine for a fake pandemic and convince people to inject themselves.
Oh, that would be clever.
Oh, wait.
That already happened.
Well, they'll try it again.
You get my point.
The only way that silver will fall in price is if there is some kind of devastating global economic event, which could be world war, or a massive reduction in human population.
As I see it, those are the only real possibilities.
Now, are those things possible?
Yes, they are.
Could silver drop to $25 an ounce if half the population of the planet is exterminated in some event?
Yes, there would be a lot of extra silver around.
Prices would plummet.
So would housing.
You know, if one out of every two people was exterminated, then, you know, what do you think could happen to real estate pricing?
Land and buildings and everything.
I mean, the economic upheaval would be unprecedented, obviously.
So yes, there are scenarios that can crush silver's price down to a price in the $20 range or the $30 range or maybe even lower than $20.
But none of those scenarios are anything that you want to live through.
They're all bad news events.
Black swans, like radioactive black swans.
I mean, the worst kind of black swans.
Do those things happen?
Yes, they do.
Like, for example, if the Yellowstone caldera exploded and dropped ash all over a third of North America, that's a pretty big event.
You know, it could kill tens of millions of people and cause economic devastation.
Or what if a meteor hit the ice caps of our world or one large ice cap and melted a bunch of ice and ocean levels rose 100 meters in a day?
Right?
Well, that's a pretty catastrophic event.
That would definitely result in a reduction of demand for silver.
So I doubt that's going to happen, but it could.
So don't hope for events that are so catastrophic that silver becomes affordable again.
Instead, understand where silver is going, which is much, much higher for the foreseeable future based on the things that we can observe right now.
Now, if gold and silver, if that's something you want to accumulate, of course, our sponsor and my recommended resources is Battalion Metals.
And you can find them at metalswithmike.com.
And that's the company that was co-founded with Tucker Carlson.
And also Chris Olson and his group.
I've been working with them for many, many years.
High integrity, very trustworthy.
Use discount code Ranger if you buy metals from them.
Really great pricing, by the way.
Honest, trustworthy.
They protect your privacy, etc.
Use discount code Ranger and they will waive the shipping insurance fee.
And again, that's at metalswithmike.com.
But should you buy silver at this price?
I can't answer that question.
I don't know.
Earlier, a year ago, I thought silver was expensive at $30.
Boy, was I wrong.
Silver is $81.
I saw a Bank of America analyst predicting that silver's next price target is going to be anywhere from $135 an ounce to, I think he said, $309 an ounce.
Like $300?
I mean, $200 sounded impossible at first, but not anymore.
$300 an ounce?
If silver gets to $300 an ounce, a lot of people are going to sell.
They're going to cash in.
And I say, hey, I bought this at $30.
I got a 10X return.
I'm selling.
Okay, good for you.
Take the profits.
What are you going to do with them?
I mean, you can't keep it in dollars because that's losing value.
What are you going to do with your silver profits other than buy gold?
Or what are you going to do with your gold profits other than buy silver?
So there's no point in selling unless you have something better to put it in.
But some people will sell.
Maybe they need the money.
Maybe they need the cash.
And that's fine.
But it could get much, much higher over the next couple of years.
And then at some point, it'll be really high.
At some point, something could happen.
Maybe there's a change in technology where they figured out how to make solar panels with no silver.
And they announce that one day and silver plummets $25.
Could that happen?
Yes.
Of course it could happen.
Or a thousand other scenarios could happen.
So don't bet everything on silver.
Diversify your portfolio and also don't take this as financial advice.
Lots of things could change.
Lots of unknowns.
Alien invasion.
Pole shift.
The whole planet could just shift.
The outer crust could just rotate.
And it could put, you know, Greenland on the equator or something.
That would be kind of disruptive, don't you think?
Yeah, there's a lot of things.
Giant solar flare takes out the power grid everywhere.
Lots of things that could disrupt silver pricing.
In the meantime, barring those black swan events, it looks like silver is going to go much, much higher for the next couple of years, unless something dramatic changes it.
So again, if you want gold and silver, metalswithmike.com, do your own research.
Use my AI engine at brightanswers.ai to help you do research on metals and risk reduction, investment strategies, things like that.
But also, you know, get your own professional, licensed, bonded, insured investment advisor person, human, if you want.
If you're into that, you know, get your human, line them up.
What should I do?
And then talk to them and figure it out.
When you figure it out, if you want gold and silver, go to metalswithmike.com.
If you don't want gold and silver, that's fine.
Invest in other things that can help you make it through all this chaos because it's going to get interesting.
We know that for sure.
All right, I'm Mike Adams.
Thank you for listening.
Take care.
Welcome to the Health Rangers Store 2026 New Year's Sale.
I'm Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and we've got a great collection of solutions for you to help make 2026 the best year of your life in terms of your health, your opportunities, mobility, immune function, digestive support, cognition, and so much more.
And we put together some really special things for you here.
So on any order where you spend $99 or more, we give you a free colloidal silver spray.
And that's right here at the top of the page.
You can go to healthrangerstore.com slash 2026 to find all these specials.
And again, you get the free spray with any order of $99 or more.
Plus, you get free shipping within the 48 contiguous U.S. states.
And each day, by the way, we feature different special-focused curated collections of products.
So you can check those out each day from digestion support to immune support, energy, mobility, really critical, heart support, fitness, etc.
Now, there's one more thing that we're doing this year, first time ever.
If you spend $299 or more, then we're going to give you 50 free books that we created ourselves using our book creation engine.
These books are not public.
They are created behind the scenes with special prompts using my knowledge and my interviews and so on.
And these books cover the gamut of really great information.
Again, you'll be able to download all 50 of these books free of charge, the PDFs, what to do when life gets less predictable, solving everyday problems at home, how to be ready without panic, you know, preparedness and self-reliance books, prepared for everyday disruptions, what to do when the stores are closed.
And we've got books on off-grid living, how to live comfortably without electricity, solving power, water, and storage challenges, and so much more.
We've got books on gardening and food growing, how to grow plants that anyone can keep alive.
That sounds handy.
Easy plants that grow virtually anywhere.
Growing useful plants with minimal effort.
Growing food without a garden yard.
Simple herbs and spices you can grow at home and many more.
We've got books on healthy cooking and daily living, like healthy drinks, light bites, and homemade treats, or one-pot meals, fresh salads, and easy sides, and more.
In all, it's about 50 books, including Living Well with Fewer Outside Inputs.
That's a book about self-reliance and off-grid living.
All these books will be given to you as a free download if you spend $299 or more with us during this sale, which lasts through January 12th at 11 a.m. Central Time.
So the website you want to go to is healthrangerstore.com slash 2026.
We'll get you straight to this page, and you can take advantage of these bonuses and these special curated collections while supplies last.
And during this special New Year's sale, we've also got our third-party vendor is offering discounts of up to 20% off, including the ever-popular Protovite, a liquid multivitamin right here, as well as Dawson Knives, with our incredibly popular Hearthfire Chef's Knife and other chef's knives that we have there and steak knives, all of this.
We've got other discounts such as Bearded Brothers, very popular wholesome food bars, the Yo Bar, and so much more.
All of this is available for you at healthrangerstore.com slash 2026.
So take advantage of that and thank you for supporting us as we help you make 2026 the best year ever.
It's the year that you can revolutionize your health and your knowledge.
And you can do all that by supporting us at healthrangerstore.com while we support the platforms that give you back unlimited knowledge like brightlearn.ai and others.