I was reading about silver prices hitting $76 per ounce in December 2025. That’s the highest in over a decade. Interesting thing is—this isn’t because of some speculative bubble or panic buying. There’s actually a real shortage happening.
For five years straight, from 2021 to 2025, the world is consuming more silver than it’s producing. Not by a little. By about 230 million ounces per year. That’s roughly equivalent to 11 months worth of global production. Every single year, we’re short.
Think about it this way. If I’m eating more than I’m earning every month, eventually my savings account empties. That’s what’s happening with global silver inventories. Shanghai’s silver storage hit a 10-year low in November 2025. Not because people forgot silver exists. Because there’s genuine physical scarcity.
Why does this matter? Because when supply can’t match demand, prices don’t just creep up. They jump. And they stay elevated.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Why can’t we just mine more silver?
The answer is weird. About 70 to 80 percent of the silver we dig out of the ground isn’t actually “silver mining.” It’s copper mining. Or lead mining. Or zinc mining. Silver just comes along for the ride as a byproduct.
Imagine you’re mining copper because copper prices are good. Silver comes out along with the copper. Now imagine copper prices crash. You stop expanding that mine. The silver supply stops growing too. Even if silver prices triple. Because the economics don’t work for silver alone.
This is why silver supply is basically inelastic. From 2020 to 2025, silver prices went up 533 percent. But global mine production only increased 3.8 percent. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the structure of how silver mining works.
New primary silver mines? They take 5 to 7 years to develop. And environmental regulations are getting stricter. So even if someone decided today to mine silver, we wouldn’t see new supply until 2027 or 2028.
Recycling? Could that help? It’s growing, but only about 6 percent per year. Meanwhile demand is growing much faster. So recycling is falling further behind every year, not catching up.
What does this mean? The shortage is probably going to stick around. Maybe through 2026, maybe longer. And that’s why prices aren’t coming back down to the $30-54 range that held for 13 years before 2025.
The structural floor for silver prices seems to have shifted higher. Not because of speculation. Because of math.