Sorry Silver Bears, the Vaults Are Empty and the Receipts Are In
Why the world just ran out of silver at exactly the wrong moment
For the first time ever, silver has smashed through $60 an ounce this week, and the smartest minds in the physical precious-metals space are warning that the real fireworks are still ahead. In its just-released December report, Sprott Asset Management laid out a case so tight it almost feels unfair to the bears: the world has drained its readily deliverable silver stockpiles to the point where almost any fresh buying could trigger a vertical move.
The core problem is simple but brutal. Mine supply plus recycling has been dead flat for over a decade while industrial demand, solar panels, EVs, 5G, AI data centers, defense applications, keeps surging. Sprott projects another 125-million-ounce deficit in 2025, pushing the cumulative deficit since 2021 toward a staggering 800 million ounces. For context, the more aggressive Silver Institute forecast (released only weeks ago) sees the 2025 hole at a record 215 million ounces, meaning the five-year drawdown has already topped one billion ounces. Either way, the direction is identical: the world is eating its silver seed corn.
Visible inventories are now flashing the same red alerts that preceded every historic squeeze. London vault stocks have cratered from their 2021 highs to fresh multi-year lows in 2025, while the December 2025 COMEX contract is already in delivery with registered (immediately deliverable) stocks scraping along multi-decade lows relative to open interest. Small backwardations have appeared in nearby spreads—an anomaly in silver that almost always signals genuine physical stress.

