A concerned citizen's guide to preventing silver withdrawals
A totally serious proposal for orderly market functioning
Dear readers,
I need you to do your patriotic duty! I have been contacted by the CEO of the COMEX (yes, THE COMEX) to help craft emergency measures to protect American financial stability. Apparently they’ve noticed some... concerning trends. People actually wanting to take delivery of the silver they bought. Can you imagine?
The nerve of these contract holders. Acting like they own something just because they paid for it and have a legal contract.
So after a two-hour brainstorm session with DS, I’ve compiled a list of totally reasonable, definitely legal, absolutely ethical mechanisms the COMEX could deploy to ensure the silver stays exactly where it belongs. In the vaults. Some might call this “desperate.” I prefer “proactive market management.”
1. Position limits on deliverable contracts - Force contract holders to either cash-settle or limit the amount they can stand for delivery in a single month
2. Increased margin requirements - Make it prohibitively expensive to hold contracts to delivery (Hunt Brothers playbook, page 1)
3. Force liquidation of concentrated positions - Declare certain holders have “excessive” positions that threaten orderly markets
4. Cash settlement only for certain contract months - Make specific delivery months cash-settled retroactively or going forward
5. Delivery allocation lottery system - You want delivery? Great, we’ll randomly assign you a percentage of what you asked for
6. Extended delivery windows - Instead of delivering in March, we’ll deliver “sometime in Q2” (good luck)
7. Warehouse minimum wait times - Want your silver? That’ll be 90-180 days before you can actually remove it
8. Emergency trading halts - Circuit breakers on steroids, lasting days or weeks
9. Retroactive contract modifications - Change the terms of existing contracts (we meant 5,000oz bars, not 1,000oz)
10. Warehouse receipt games - Make the actual withdrawal process so Byzantine that people give up
11. “Good delivery” bar redefinition - Suddenly only specific refineries count, conveniently those with limited capacity
12. Force majeure declarations - War, pandemic, “unforeseen circumstances” allow them to delay/modify delivery
13. Delivery fee explosions - The silver is yours! That’ll be $500/oz in storage, insurance, and handling fees
14. Geographic delivery restrictions - You can take delivery... but only at this one warehouse in Montana
15. Anti-manipulation investigations - Launch investigations into buyers, freeze their positions during the “inquiry”
16. Tiered delivery pricing - First 1,000 oz at spot, next 5,000 at spot+$5, above that at spot+$15
17. Minimum holding periods pre-delivery - You need to hold the contract for 6 months before standing for delivery
18. Introduce “virtual delivery” - You get a blockchain token representing silver, not actual metal
19. Mandatory arbitration for disputes - No courts, just industry-friendly arbitrators
20. Derivative-only trading periods - Physical contracts suspended, options and futures only
21. Strategic reserve eminent domain - Government “temporarily” requisitions deliverable stocks for “national security”
22. Delivery substitution rights - We’re out of silver, here’s gold at a conversion rate we determine
23. Accredited investor restrictions on delivery - Only institutions can take physical, retail gets cash
24. ESG delivery requirements - Prove the silver will be used for “green” purposes or no delivery
25. Delivery insurance requirements - Need $100M in insurance to take physical delivery
26. Cooling-off periods - 30-day mandatory wait between position opening and delivery notice
27. Warehouse capacity caps - Only X tons can be withdrawn per month across all participants
28. Exchange member priority system - Exchange members get delivery priority, everyone else waits
29. Delivery by installment plan - You’ll get your 5,000oz... 100oz per month for 50 months
30. Silver quality re-grading - Independent assay required for each bar before delivery (6 month wait time)
31. Climate impact delivery tax - $10/oz carbon tax on physical delivery to discourage it
32. Delivery lottery system with fee escalation - Winners pay spot, losers pay spot+20% or cash settle
33. Mandatory philanthropic donation - Taking delivery? Donate 10% to exchange-approved charity
34. Digital twin substitution - Here’s an NFT of your silver bars, same thing really
35. Proof of industrial use - Must prove silver is for legitimate industrial use, not “hoarding”
36. International delivery only - US delivery suspended, try London (London: try Zurich, Zurich: try Shanghai...)
37. Exchange-issued silver IOUs - Redeemable for physical “when markets normalize”
38. Time-decay delivery rights - Your delivery right loses 1% value per day you don’t exercise it
39. Reciprocal delivery obligations - Want to take delivery? First you must make delivery of equivalent value
40. AI-determined delivery priority - Algorithm decides who “really needs” the silver based on submitted business plans
41. Silver NFT airdrops in lieu of physical - The metaverse is the future anyway
42. Delivery in Mexican pesos equivalent - At our discretion, in cash
43. Mandatory 24-month layaway plan - Pay now, maybe get silver in 2027
44. Delivery rights as exchange equity - Instead of silver, here’s 0.0001% of CME Group stock
45. “The refinery fire” - All good delivery bars were unfortunately in a warehouse that mysteriously burned down
46. Silver recalled for “safety testing” - CFTC demands all deliverable silver be tested for radioactivity (18-month process)
47. Delivery blackout dates - No delivery during months with 31 days, February, or months ending in ‘r’
48. Quantum silver certificates - The silver simultaneously exists and doesn’t exist until observed
49. Mandatory peer review - Your delivery request must be approved by other market participants
50. “A mice got in the server and ate the backups” - All delivery records corrupted, resubmit with notarized originals
51. Gender-balanced delivery requirements - Delivery only approved if your company has 50/50 gender representation on the board
52. Pronoun declaration mandatory - All delivery requests must include preferred pronouns in triplicate notarized forms (6-8 week processing)
53. Diversity audit for delivery - Prove your company meets DEI standards before taking physical silver
54. Non-binary delivery options - Silver exists on a spectrum; you get somewhere between 0-5000oz based on our inclusive algorithm
55. Microaggression review board - All delivery disputes handled by sensitivity-trained arbitrators
56. Land acknowledgment delays - Each delivery must be preceded by proper indigenous land acknowledgment ceremony (minimum 30 days notice)
57. Reparations delivery tax - Historical injustices mean 15% of your silver goes to exchange-approved causes
58. Triggering content warnings - Physical silver may cause distress; mandatory counseling before delivery
59. Inclusive warehouse access - Warehouses being renovated for accessibility; delivery suspended 18 months
60. Social credit delivery scoring - Your Twitter/X history determines delivery eligibility
The real question isn’t which rules they’ll try.
It’s how many they’ll stack simultaneously.
Anything I forgot? Let yourself go in the comments!
H/T to Richard Roskell ‘s comment here
LOL Great fun!
It wouldn't be surprising to see the LBMA/COMEX use some of your ideas, both for current contracts and future ones. One thing I can say for certain though, it all smells like default.
61. All deliveries shall be coordinated through our foreign call center. After figuring out the please press # cypher, you'll need to agree to be subject to all potential future tariffs on metals deliveries ordered through our foreign call center. This will be billed in advance, speculatively, at the CRIMEX's sole discretion.