If you believe silver is trading at ~$100/oz, youāre not observing the full market.
Youāre looking at a paper price, not where real supply and demand meet.
Step outside the screen, and a very different picture emerges:
šŗšø COMEX (paper): ~$100
šÆšµ Japan (physical): ~$145
šØš³ China (physical): ~$140
š¦šŖ UAE (physical): ~$165
This isnāt a minor discrepancy.
Itās a structural disconnect ā and it shouldnāt exist in a healthy market.
Under normal conditions, arbitrage would close spreads like this quickly.
The fact that it hasnāt tells us something important: the paper market is under constraint.
Why?
Because large financial institutions are heavily short silver through derivatives.
If prices converge toward where physical metal actually clears ā say $130ā$150 ā those losses stop being theoretical. They become balance-sheet events.
At that stage, itās no longer about positioning or speculation.
Itās about risk containment and survival.
What weāre seeing now resembles a quiet divergence:
Physical silver is steadily moving out of vaults
Paper contracts continue to expand
Real value is being absorbed
Claims on that value are multiplying
That dynamic can persist ā until inventories tighten enough to stress delivery.
When that happens, paper pricing loses authority.
This isnāt a call for immediate fireworks.
Itās an observation of building pressure.
Silver isnāt stable.
Itās compressed.
And when compression releases, it rarely does so in an orderly way.
Most participants wonāt notice ā because theyāre focused on the quoted price, not the clearing price.

