Since last week's peak, the silver market has evaporated approximately 150 billion US dollars in market value. Analysts refer to this as a "death trap".

After experiencing a record-breaking surge, silver prices suddenly underwent a brutal three-day sell-off, leaving retail investors who had previously driven its sharp rise in tatters, much to the astonishment of traders. The volatile price fluctuations reminded people of the frenzy surrounding "meme stocks" during the COVID-19 pandemic - last Thursday, silver prices hit a high above $120 per ounce, only to plummet by over 30% before rebounding 5% this Tuesday. Traders revealed that the key factor driving the surge in silver prices in recent months was speculative buying by retail investors. Data from Wanda Research Company showed that in January, retail investors injected a record-breaking $1 billion into silver exchange-traded funds, making them the hardest hit in this sell-off. "Silver has always been a 'death trap'," said Stone X analyst Rhona O'Connell, "the recent surge in the past few weeks has reached an exaggerated level - this is essentially a crisis that was bound to happen sooner or later." It is estimated that exchange-traded funds tracking gold and silver have lost about $150 billion in market value since last week's peak. "Silver being called 'enhanced gold' has its reasons, it is prone to overreact in both directions," said CRU analyst Kirill Kirilenko, "and the silver market is much smaller than gold."