Category: Silver

Silver’s status in the US market just shifted in a major way, opening the door to a fundamentally different price outlook. At the same time, Bitcoin is struggling to recover as mainstream adoption brings heavier regulatory oversight to a once-fringe digital currency.

In this week’s The Gold Spot, Scottsdale Bullion & Coin’s Precious Metals Advisors Todd Graf and Tim Murphy discuss silver’s designation as a critical mineral, what bullish chart pattern is forming, and why Bitcoin may be falling out of favor among investors.

Silver’s Volatility Explained

After surging past $50 for the first time in history about a month ago, prices have experienced characteristic volatility. Shortly after breaching the long-held $50 ceiling, silver prices breached $54 before falling back to $46/oz. So far in November, those losses have been reclaimed with silver prices heading for $55/oz.

This volatility has been characteristic of the silver industry due to decades of heavy short positioning by major financial players. This behind-the-scenes manipulation enabled whales to purchase silver at lower prices. Following the conviction of two J.P. Morgan precious metals traders, many traders hoped for the end of silver market manipulation, but the interference by the big players persists.

In 2020, the underlying shallowness of the silver market resurfaced as official consumption began rising alongside strong central bank demand for gold. Led by India, Russia, and China, this surge in physical silver buying quickly put pressure on inventories at the London Metal Exchange, one of the world’s largest hubs.

The Silver Short Squeeze Sets In

The dwindling silver supply forced the leading financial short sellers to buy back futures contracts, elevating the metal’s spot price. The waning silver supply also hikes borrowing costs—the fee traders pay to borrow physical metal to operate positions. In October 2025, lease rates in the London market soared to over 30%. For reference, these rates usually are around 1% when supplies are robust.

Source: The Bubble Bubble Report

“Silver is in a good old-fashioned short squeeze.”

Tim Murphy

Precious Metals Advisor

All of these pressures have culminated in a full-scale short squeeze—a bullish market scenario where rising demand collides with vanishing supply, forcing shorts to buy back silver at any price. The result is often a blow-off top where silver enters price discovery mode, launching to new heights.

Silver Officially Added to Critical Minerals List

The backdrop of shrinking physical availability, ballooning borrowing costs, and widespread geopolitical tension set the stage for government intervention. Earlier in the year, we discussed the prospect of silver being added to the US critical minerals list.

Recently, the federal government confirmed those reports by officially designating silver as a critical mineral, which comes with added protection and potential controls.

This federal oversight of the silver market signals a dramatic shift in US policy and has considerable implications for the metal’s price. Despite the magnitude of this step, the announcement has been largely downplayed in the media, leaving most of the public unaware of its significance.

A Five-Decade Cup & Handle Breakout

Alongside these foundational tailwinds, silver is flashing an extremely optimistic technical signal. Currently, silver’s price action is breaking out of a cup-and-handle pattern that has been 50 years in the making. With its base near $5 and the resistance around $50, silver’s price is forming one of the most bullish formations ever seen in the shiny metal’s history.

50-year silver spot price chart. Chart source: silveprice.org

“This cup and handle…is a 50-year formation…that I’ve never seen anything like before. It’s very, very powerful. $100 an ounce is very real, and it could happen as soon as March of next year. So we’re not that far away.”

Tim Murphy

Precious Metals Advisor

Bitcoin Slides

Bitcoin price October to November 2025. Chart source: coinmarketcap.com

Bitcoin has been under sharp pressure in recent weeks, falling from roughly $125,000 to below $100,000 as volatility sweeps through the cryptocurrency market. The pullback mirrors the broader instability across digital assets, driven by heavy profit-taking, margin liquidations, and increasingly aggressive activity from large holders.

In particular, an estimated $40 billion worth of long-dormant wallets—some untouched for five to seven years—have begun unloading substantial portions of their holdings, adding to the selling pressure.

Crypto Enters the Mainstream

The recent Bitcoin selloff and the broader softness in the cryptocurrency market reflect a shifting landscape for digital currencies. What was once heralded as the ultimate form of financial privacy has been thrust into the grasp of regulatory control, government oversight, and powerful financial interests.

Some of the largest banks in the world, including Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan, are expanding their footprints in the crypto space, bringing the potential for volatility and outright manipulation, which have marred the silver market for decades. At the same time, governments are rolling out central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), adding stablecoins to reserves, and cozying up to crypto elites with a track record of fraud.

“Cryptocurrency, it is changing. I mean, it’s becoming more mainstream. A lot of people are concerned about privacy with this.”

Todd Graf

Precious Metals Advisor

Silver Surges as Crypto Stumbles

The Bitcoin vs precious metals debate is getting quickly resolved as cryptocurrencies fall victim to the same fate as fiat currencies and other heavily regulated assets.

Meanwhile, gold continues to break new records as governments top up their reserves due to the yellow metal’s privacy, inherent value, and lack of control.

At the same time, silver’s classification as a critical mineral and a bullish cup-and-handle formation signal a potential breakout.

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Gold is on fire. The yellow metal has surged from roughly $1,650/oz to over $4,300/oz in just three years, a staggering 145% jump that’s left analysts scrambling to keep up. It took nearly five years for gold to climb from $2,000/oz to $3,000/oz, but only 200 days to leap from $3,000/oz to $4,000/oz. That kind of acceleration has rewritten the playbook for what’s possible.

The rally’s strength has forced Wall Street and central banks alike to revise their once-conservative gold price forecasts. Price targets that seemed ambitious a year ago have already been squashed.

We’ve already explored the market’s gold price predictions for 2026, but it’s increasingly evident that the yellow metal’s story doesn’t end there. To better understand where the market could be headed, investors need to consider gold price forecasts on a longer time horizon.

Why 2026 Isn’t the Top for Gold

For decades, mainstream finance treated gold with polite indifference, acknowledging its strength during crises but stopping short of a genuine endorsement. That attitude has now flipped on its head.

In just a few years, the world economy has been flipped upside down. The US dollar has fallen from grace as a safe-haven asset, along with America’s reputation as a preserver of financial stability. This destabilization has elevated gold from a short-term, cyclical hedge to the cornerstone of an emerging, multi-polar global economic system.

This transformation shift has spurred some of the world’s largest banks and most respected analysts to urge investors to increase their gold exposure. The establishment is finally joining the long-time gold advocates who’ve been sounding the alarm for years. Gold price forecasts for 2026 are optimistic, but the real confidence is found in extended timelines.

Bullish Gold Bets: Analysts’ Targets at a Glance

Voices Behind the Calls

Structural Drivers of Higher Gold Prices

Fed Easing & Inflation Risk: The Federal Reserve’s resumption of rate cuts is expected to keep gold prices elevated for years, as real yields are suppressed. This boosts the appeal of non-yielding safe-haven assets such as precious metals. At the same time, economists warn of sustained inflation and even stagflation as world trade grinds to a halt and the global economy splinters.

Fiscal Strain: The US economy is bogged down by soaring national debt, widening federal deficits, and spiking interest costs. The Modern Monetary Theory experiment is zapping the dollar’s performance and crushing America’s credibility rating, lifting demand for hard assets.

De-Dollarization: The global response to the systemically corroded US financial system and dollar weaponization is a flight from dollar-backed assets. The de-dollarization trend sees countries around the world shedding USD holdings in favor of gold.

Central Bank Demand: Official gold consumption has entered a historic phase of unprecedented demand as central banks purchase more than 1,000 tons for three consecutive years. 2025 is on pace to mark the fourth, and experts see this durable, non-price-sensitive demand continuing.

Western Investors Return: Following years of steady outflows, gold exchange-traded funds are seeing inflows from Western retail investors. Eastern demand has remained high, especially in China and India — the two largest gold jewelry markets in the world. This rising investment demand adds fuel to strong official consumption.

Historic Revaluation: The dollar’s weakness has reignited debate about gold’s true value, relative to various fiscal indicators, such as the $38 trillion national debt, US Treasuries, and the M2 money supply — the amount of money in circulation. Many of these estimates place gold between $25,000/oz and $85,000/oz.

Market Structure: Gold isn’t only rising in value but in status, too. Right now, central banks are loading up more gold than USD, signaling a growing preference for the physical metal. Furthermore, the global banking system has designated gold as a Tier 1 asset, putting it on the same level as the dollar and bonds.

Source: Crescat Capital LLC via Investing.com

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