A book that made Saylor go all-in on Bitcoin eight years ago has ‘passed a death sentence’ on silver.
Original Title: “An Eight-Year-Old Book About Bitcoin Is Now ‘Predicting’ A Silver Collapse?”Author: David, TechFlow
In 2020, Michael Saylor, the founder of MicroStrategy, read a book and decided to buy $425 million worth of Bitcoin.
The book, titled The Bitcoin Standard, published in 2018, has been translated into 39 languages, sold over a million copies, and is regarded as the “Bible” by Bitcoin enthusiasts.
The author, Saifedean Ammous, holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University, and his central argument is singular:
Bitcoin is a harder form of “hard money” than gold.
Moreover, on the promotional page of this book, Michael Saylor’s exact words of endorsement are as follows:
“This book is a work of genius. After reading it, I decided to buy $425 million worth of Bitcoin. It has had the greatest influence on MicroStrategy’s thinking, leading us to shift our balance sheet to a Bitcoin standard.”
However, one chapter in this book does not discuss Bitcoin; instead, it explains why silver cannot serve as hard money.
Eight years later, silver has just surged to an all-time high of $117, and the investment frenzy in precious metals continues. Even Hyperliquid and a number of CEXs have started offering contract trading for precious metals in various forms.
Often at times like these, there will always be someone playing the role of whistleblower or contrarian to warn of risks, especially in an environment where everything rises except Bitcoin.
For instance, a widely circulated post on crypto Twitter today showed someone citing a page from this book — a screenshot of page 23 with a highlighted paragraph stating:
Every silver bubble will burst, and the next one will be no exception.
Before jumping to conclusions, let’s take a closer look at what this core argument really entails.
The core argument in this book is actually called stock-to-flow, the ratio of stock to flow. Bitcoin OGs may have heard of this theory to some extent.
In layman’s terms, for something to become ‘hard money,’ the key lies in how difficult it is to increase its supply.
Gold is hard to mine. The global above-ground gold stock is about 200,000 tons, with less than 3,500 tons of new production annually. Even if the price of gold doubles, miners cannot suddenly produce twice as much gold. This is called ‘supply rigidity.’
Bitcoin takes this to an extreme. Its total supply is capped at 21 million coins, halving every four years, and no one can alter the code. This is scarcity created by algorithms.
What about silver?
The highlighted passage in the book essentially means that silver bubbles have burst before and will do so again. This is because once large amounts of capital flow into silver, miners can easily increase supply, driving prices down and eroding the wealth of savers.
The author also provided an example: the Hunt brothers.
In the late 1970s, the Texas oil tycoons, the Hunt brothers, decided to corner the silver market. They purchased billions of dollars worth of silver and futures contracts, driving the price from $6 to $50, setting a new historical high for silver at that time.
What happened next? Miners flooded the market with silver, trading platforms raised margin requirements, and the price of silver collapsed. The Hunt brothers lost over $1 billion and eventually went bankrupt.
Thus, the author concluded:
The supply elasticity of silver is too high, making it unsuitable as a store of value. Every time someone attempts to hoard it as “hard currency,” the market responds by increasing production to punish them.
When this logic was written in 2018, silver was priced at $15 per ounce. Few people paid attention.
For the above logic about silver to hold true, a premise must be met: when the price of silver rises, supply can keep up.
However, 25 years of data tell a different story.
Global silver mine production peaked in 2016 at approximately 900 million ounces. By 2025, that figure had dropped to 835 million ounces. Despite a sevenfold increase in price, production fell by 7%.
Why is the logic of ‘higher prices leading to increased production’ no longer valid?
One structural reason is that approximately 75% of silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, zinc, and lead mining. Miners’ production decisions depend on the prices of base metals, not silver. Even if the price of silver doubles, but the price of copper does not rise, new mines will not be opened.
Another reason could be time. The cycle from exploration to production for new mining projects takes 8 to 12 years. Even if construction begins immediately, no additional supply will be available before 2030.
The result has been five consecutive years of supply deficits. According to data from the Silver Institute, between 2021 and 2025, the global cumulative silver deficit will approach 820 million ounces, nearly equivalent to an entire year’s global mine production.
At the same time, silver inventories are nearing depletion. Deliverable silver inventories at the London Bullion Market Association have dropped to just 155 million ounces. The silver lease rate has surged from a normal range of 0.3%-0.5% to 8%, indicating that some parties are willing to pay an annualized cost of 8% just to secure physical delivery.
Another new variable is that, starting January 1, 2026, China will impose export restrictions on refined silver, with only state-owned large factories having an annual production capacity exceeding 80 tons eligible to obtain export licenses. Small and medium-sized exporters will be completely excluded.
During the era of the Hunt brothers, miners and holders could flood the market through increased production and dumping.
This time, the supply side may be running out of ammunition.
When the Hunt brothers hoarded silver, it was a monetary speculative asset. Buyers were thinking: prices will rise, so stockpile and wait to sell.
The silver rally in 2025 is driven by entirely different factors.
Let’s first look at a set of data. According to the World Silver Survey 2025 report, industrial demand for silver reached 680.5 million ounces in 2024, a record high. This figure accounts for more than 60% of global total demand.
What is driving industrial demand?
Every solar panel in photovoltaic systems requires silver paste to create conductive layers. The International Energy Agency forecasts that global photovoltaic installed capacity will quadruple by 2030. The photovoltaic industry has already become the largest single industrial buyer of silver.
Electric vehicles. A traditional internal combustion vehicle uses approximately 15-28 grams of silver, while an electric vehicle uses 25-50 grams, with higher-end models requiring even more. Silver is used in battery management systems, motor controllers, charging interfaces, and more.
AI and data centers. Servers, chip packaging, and high-frequency connectors rely on silver’s irreplaceable electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity. This segment of demand began accelerating in 2024, with the Silver Institute specifically listing “AI-related applications” as a separate category in their report.
In 2025, the U.S. Department of the Interior included silver on its list of “critical minerals.” The last time this list was updated, lithium and rare earth elements were added.
Of course, consistently high silver prices will lead to “silver-saving” effects. For example, some photovoltaic manufacturers have already reduced the amount of silver paste used per panel. However, the Silver Institute predicts that, even considering the silver-saving effect, industrial demand will remain near record levels over the next 1-2 years.
This is essentially inelastic demand, a variable that Saifedean may not have anticipated when writing the book The Bitcoin Standard.
The narrative of Bitcoin as ‘digital gold’ has recently fallen silent in the face of real gold and silver.
The market has dubbed this year the ‘Debasement Trade’: a weakening US dollar, rising inflation expectations, and geopolitical tensions have driven funds into hard assets as a safe haven. However, this wave of safe-haven capital has chosen gold and silver, not Bitcoin.
For Bitcoin maximalists, this calls for an explanation.
Thus, the book mentioned above has become a kind of canonical answer and defense of their position: the rise in silver is due to a bubble, and when it bursts, you will see who is right.
This is more like a narrative self-rescue.
When the asset you hold underperforms the market for an entire year, you need a framework to explain why you are still right.
Short-term price movements are unimportant; long-term logic matters. The logic behind silver is flawed, while the logic behind Bitcoin is sound, so Bitcoin will inevitably outperform—it’s only a matter of time.
Is this logic internally consistent? Yes. Can it be falsified? Very difficult.
Because you can always say, ‘It hasn’t been long enough.’
The problem is that the real world does not wait. Those who are heavily invested in Bitcoin and altcoins and still loyal to the crypto community are truly anxious.
The theoretical framework of Bitcoin written eight years ago cannot automatically override the reality of its stagnant price eight years later.
Silver is still surging ahead, and we sincerely wish Bitcoin good fortune.
