- ~2020: Silver begins a structural supply/demand deficit where mining production + scrap recycling < industrial demand. The structural deficit begins draining existing vault stocks from the LBMA et al
- 2021: The US military begins sourcing silver from the public markets as the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) runs out of their surplus silver stock
- July 2024: India enters the chat:
- Silver spot price begins ~93% correlation with INR/CNY currency pair. This might be reflective of India facilitating a Russian oil for Chinese silver trade
- India slashes silver import duties
- October 2024: Russian central bank announces plans to acquire silver as part of its reserves
- Dec 2024: Bullion banks begin taking delivery of LBMA silver and shipping it to NYC (COMEX) as they realize that their short COMEX, long LBMA EFP settlement trades are at risk of heavy losses if Trump's tariff threats include tariffs on silver
- March 2025: News breaks in the MSM that the LBMA is in technical default on gold deliveries ( up to T+60!). The world learns that the LBMA is not a bottomless, infinite pool of liquidity even with the ability to borrow from the Bank of England. The Bank of England does not have silver to lend (but SLV does)
- April 2025: Three items of note:
- Free float LBMA silver vault stock has drained from 480M ozt (14,934 metric tons) at the start of Dec 2024 down to 148M ozt (4,624 metric tons) at the start of April
- The Trump administration clarifies that silver will be tariff exempt and the LBMA->COMEX drain ends
- Chinese banks begin offering silver accumulation accounts for Chinese people to buy physical silver
- August 2025: USA announces consideration of silver to the critical materials list
- September 2025: SLV reports large swings in vault stock inventory as the EFP spread rises again (encouraging LBMA->COMEX draining again)
- October 2025: Major news:
- LBMA lease rates blow out - reportedly up to 200%
- India ramps up silver buying to a reported (at least) 1000 metric tons per month
- JPM tells India they will have to wait until November for LBMA silver (T+?? technical default)
- Bullion banks begin sending COMEX silver back to London (LBMA)
- Silver refineries stop buying less than .999 fine silver - reportedly they are massively backlogged with scrap stock and focusing production on Good Delivery silver bars to help the LBMA
- Many LBMA refineries stop offering the public various silver products as they stop production
- Retail and wholesale physical silver markets stopped using LBMA spot and started using COMEX futures when the LBMA broke down
- SLV vault stock gets raided. SLV share borrow fee blows out to more than 15%
- Rumors swirl that central banks are buying silver
- LBMA default occurs when they purportedly had a free float of ~110M ozt (~3,430 metric tons) exposing the fog of data on the true scope of free float amongst privately held LBMA silver
- November 2025: Several items:
- Indian MCX silver futures remain in backwardation most of the month. When did JPM deliver their silver?
- India customs data for October shows that they imported more silver from the UK than the LBMA's vault stock reports can account for
- USA officially adds silver to the critical materials list. Suggestions that USA might develop a strategic stockpile for silver amongst other critical materials begin
- CME shuts down all trading during the quiet hours of a holiday night on the pretext that there was a overheating problem in their data center (that has triple redundant backups). Rumors swirl that they shut it down to allow a liquidity injection from the Fed to save bullion bank that was underwater on a silver position
- December 2025: LBMA silver vault stock report for end of November does not add up when considering other public data.
We are still early in December and LBMA lease rates are purportedly rising again (up to 8% per Gottlieb), SLV inventory is starting to draw down again and Indian futures are in backwardation again. It looks to me like the LBMA is going to be in trouble again soon.
Please remind me if I missed an important milestone in the timeline.
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