Author: David, Shenchao TechFlow
Original Title: An 8-Year-Old Book About Bitcoin Is 'Predicting' a Silver Crash?
In 2020, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor read a book and decided to buy $425 million worth of Bitcoin.
This book is called "The Bitcoin Standard," published in 2018, translated into 39 languages, sold over a million copies, and is revered by Bitcoin enthusiasts as the "Bible."
Author Saifedean Ammous, a Columbia University economics PhD, has one core argument:
Bitcoin is a "harder" form of hard currency than gold.
Meanwhile, on the book's promotional page, Michael Saylor's endorsement reads:
"This book is a work of genius. After reading it, I decided to buy $425 million worth of Bitcoin. It has had the greatest impact on MicroStrategy's way of thinking, leading us to shift our balance sheet to a Bitcoin standard."
But there is one chapter in this book that isn't about Bitcoin. It's about why silver cannot become a hard currency.
Eight years later, silver has just surged to a historic high of $117 per ounce, the investment frenzy in precious metals continues, and even Hyperliquid and a number of CEXs have begun listing precious metal contracts in various forms.
Often at times like these, there are always those who act as whistleblowers or defectors to warn of risks, especially in an environment where everything is rising except Bitcoin.
For example, a widely circulated post on Crypto Twitter today is someone quoting from this book, sharing a screenshot of page 23 with a highlighted paragraph that reads:
Every silver bubble has burst, and the next one will be no exception.
The History of Silver Speculation
Before you rush to criticize, let's look at what this core argument actually is.
The core argument in this book is called stock-to-flow. OG BTC enthusiasts have probably heard of this theory.
Translated into plain language: For something to become a "hard currency," the key is how difficult it is to increase its production.
Gold is hard to mine. Global above-ground gold stocks are about 200,000 tons, with annual new production of less than 3,500 tons. Even if the gold price doubles, miners can't suddenly dig out twice as much gold. This is called "supply rigidity."
Bitcoin is even more extreme. The total supply is capped at 21 million coins, halving every four years, and no one can change the code. This is scarcity created by algorithm.
What about silver?
The gist of that highlighted passage is: Silver bubbles have burst before and will burst again. Because once large amounts of money flow into silver, miners can easily increase supply, driving the price down, and evaporating the wealth of savers.
The author also gives an example: the Hunt brothers.
In the late 1970s, Texas oil tycoons the Hunt brothers decided to hoard silver, attempting to corner the market. They bought billions of dollars worth of silver and futures contracts, driving the price from $6 to $50, setting a then-historic high for silver.
And then? Miners疯狂出货白银 (frantically sold silver), exchanges raised margin requirements, and the silver price crashed. The Hunt brothers lost over $1 billion and eventually went bankrupt.
Therefore, the author's conclusion is:
Silver's supply elasticity is too high,注定不可能成为价值储存工具 (doomed to be unable to become a store of value). Every time someone tries to hoard it as "hard currency," the market will teach them a lesson with increased production.
When this logic was written in 2018, silver was $15 an ounce. Nobody cared.
Is This Silver Rally Different?
For the above logic about silver to hold true, there is a premise: if the silver price rises, supply can keep up.
However, data from the last 25 years tells a different story.
Global silver mine production peaked in 2016 at approximately 900 million ounces. By 2025, this number had dropped to 835 million ounces. The price increased 7-fold, but production反而缩了 7% (instead shrank by 7%).
Why doesn't the "price rise leads to production increase" logic work?
One structural reason is that about 75% of silver is produced as a by-product of copper, zinc, and lead mining. Miners' production decisions depend on the prices of these base metals, not on silver. Even if the silver price doubles, if the copper price doesn't rise, mines won't open more.
Another reason might be time. The cycle from exploration to production for a new mine project is 8 to 12 years. Even if work starts immediately, no new supply will be seen before 2030.
The result is five consecutive years of supply deficit. According to Silver Institute data, from 2021 to 2025, the global cumulative silver deficit is close to 820 million ounces, almost equivalent to a full year's global mine production.
Meanwhile, silver inventories are also bottoming out. The London Bullion Market Association's deliverable silver inventory has dropped to only 155 million ounces. The silver lease rate has surged from the normal 0.3%-0.5% to 8%, meaning someone is willing to pay an 8% annualized cost just to secure physical silver.
There's also a new variable. Starting January 1, 2026, China implemented export restrictions on refined silver, with only state-owned large factories with an annual production capacity of over 80 tons able to obtain export licenses. Small and medium-sized exporters are directly shut out.
In the era of the Hunt brothers, miners and holders could use increased production and selling to smash the price.
This time, the supply side might be running out of bullets.
Speculation, but also Rigid Demand
When the Hunt brothers hoarded silver, silver was a monetary speculation. Buyers thought: the price will rise, hoard it and wait to sell.
The driving force behind the 2025 silver rally is completely different.
First, look at some data. According to the World Silver Survey 2025 report, industrial demand for silver reached 680.5 million ounces in 2024, a historical high. This number accounts for over 60% of total global demand.
What is industrial demand buying?
Photovoltaics (PV). Every solar panel requires silver paste for its conductive layer. The International Energy Agency predicts global PV installed capacity will quadruple by 2030. The PV industry is already the single largest industrial buyer of silver.
Electric Vehicles (EVs). A traditional internal combustion engine vehicle uses about 15-28 grams of silver. An electric vehicle uses 25-50 grams, with high-end models using even more. Battery management systems, motor controllers, charging interfaces—silver is needed everywhere.
AI and Data Centers. Servers, chip packaging, high-frequency connectors—silver's conductivity and thermal conductivity are irreplaceable. This demand began accelerating in 2024, and the Silver Institute specifically listed "AI-related applications" in its report.
In 2025, the U.S. Department of the Interior listed silver on its "Critical Minerals" list. The last time this list was updated, lithium and rare earths were added.
Of course, sustained high silver prices will bring about a "silver thrifting" effect, such as some PV manufacturers already reducing the amount of silver paste per panel. But the Silver Institute's prediction is that even considering thrifting, industrial demand will remain near record levels for the next 1-2 years.
This is essentially rigid demand, a variable that Saifedean might not have foreseen when writing "The Bitcoin Standard."
A Book Can Also Provide Psychological Comfort
Bitcoin's "digital gold" narrative has recently been muted in the face of actual gold and silver.
The market has dubbed this year the "Debasement Trade": a weakening dollar, rising inflation expectations, geopolitical tensions, funds flowing into hard assets for safety. But this wave of safe-haven money chose gold and silver, not Bitcoin.
For Bitcoin maximalists, this requires an explanation.
Hence, the aforementioned book becomes a kind of classical reference for an answer and a defense of their position: silver is rising now because it's a bubble, wait for it to crash, then you'll know who was right.
This is more like a narrative self-rescue.
When the asset you hold underperforms the market for a whole year, you need a framework to explain "why I'm still right."
Short-term price doesn't matter, long-term logic does. Silver's logic is wrong, Bitcoin's logic is right, so Bitcoin must outperform, it's just a matter of time.
Is this logic consistent? Yes. Can it be falsified? Difficult.
Because you can always say "not enough time has passed."
The problem is, the real world doesn't wait. Brothers holding Bitcoin and altcoins, still坚守加密圈 (holding fast to the crypto circle), are really anxious.
A Bitcoin theory written 8 years ago cannot automatically cover the reality of not rising 8 years later.
Silver is still soaring, and we sincerely wish Bitcoin good luck.
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