The Silver Market Cap Myth Is One of the Biggest Misconceptions in Commodities

One of the most repeated mistakes in the silver market is the idea that silver has a clear and simple “market cap,” similar to stocks or cryptocurrencies. At first glance, it seems simple. Take all the silver ever mined, multiply it by today’s price, and you get a huge number.

But as Wall Street Mav, who has over 1.7 million followers on X, points out, that way of thinking has nothing to do with how the silver market really works.

The problem starts with the assumption that all Silver ever mined is still available. Roughly 56 billion ounces of silver have been produced throughout history, but much of it is not just sitting around, waiting to be traded.

In fact, 90% of it has already been used in industry. It has been turned into paste and embedded into electronics, solar panels, mirrors, medical equipment, and dozens of other products. In most cases, this silver exists in tiny quantities, often just a few grams at a time, scattered across millions of devices.

Once silver is used like that, it effectively disappears from the active market. Only about 20% of silver gets recycled. The rest is either too expensive, too complex, or simply impractical to recover. 

That is why talking about a giant “silver market cap” based on total historical production is misleading. Most of that silver cannot be bought, sold, or delivered today.

Moreover, this also explains why silver prices behave the way they do. If there really were tens of billions of ounces floating around and easily accessible, silver would not be trading above $100 per ounce. 

Industrial buyers would not need to strike direct deals with mining companies to secure supply. The fact that they do shows how tight real silver availability actually is.

Furthermore, some people argue that silver is never truly gone because it is a chemical element. In theory, that is true. But in practice, silver buried in landfills, mixed into e-waste, or dispersed into industrial waste might as well be gone for today’s market. 

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Recovering it would require mining it again, just in a different form. As Wall Street Mav put it, future silver mines may end up being e-waste landfills, but that only becomes viable at much higher prices.

This is why the silver “market cap” narrative keeps misleading people. It assumes silver behaves like a stock or a crypto token, where supply is clearly tracked and accessible. 

In reality, silver behaves more like oil that has already been burned. Once used and dispersed, it no longer functions as part of the tradable supply.

Understanding this changes how silver should be viewed. Rising prices are not just speculation. They reflect a market where usable supply is far smaller than most people believe, while industrial demand keeps rising. And that is why the silver market cap myth is not just wrong, but one of the biggest misconceptions in commodities today.

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