"I’ve learned not to underestimate the establishment’s creativity when crushing challenges to the system."
Oh yes. The established players don't care whether you're trying to rob the system or reform it. Either way you will be attacked with great vigor. This applies to politics and economics equally, as they work hand in hand.
COMEX will not reform itself, nor will politicians force it to. The only hope for a functional market is Shanghai. There, at least, there's a non-zero chance that the authorities will not give banks the keys to the vault.
From a recent speech by Xi Jinping, President of China:
"[We must] adhere to the people-centered value orientation. The financial cause led by our Party is ultimately intended to benefit the people, which is very different from the nature of some countries' finance serving capital and serving a small number of rich people. In the new era, financial work should stand firm in the people's position, enhance the diversity, inclusiveness and accessibility of services, and better protect the rights and interests of financial consumers.
[We also must ensure] that the real economy remains our fundamental purpose. The real economy is the foundation of finance, finance is the bloodline of the real economy, and serving the real economy is the vocation of finance. If you are keen on self-circulation and self-expansion, [hyper-financialization, in other words] finance will become passive water, uncut wood, and sooner or later a crisis will be formed. China's finance must adhere to the service of the real economy, promote high-quality development, and must not be out of the real situation."
Generally speaking, when the highest authorities in China say, "This is the way it's going to be," they mean it. And if you'd like the evidence of that, simply look at how the government of China has gone after their billionaires, like Jack Ma (Alibaba), Jimmy Lai (China Daily) and the Evergrande crew.
In China, banks and oligarchs don't tell the government how things are going to work. It's the other way 'round.
Trump has retreated every time the market tanks but he has a lot of incentives going into the midterms. After that, who knows. I suspect he’ll focus on milking the presidency for as much wealth as possible like suing the IRS for a billion dollars.
Xi on the other hand will try because it’s in his interest and that of the Party to do because their economy is in the dumps and he doesn’t want riots in the streets from unemployed young men challenging his leadership. Just my thoughts, could be totally wrong😊
"The only hope for a functional market is Shanghai. There, at least, there's a non-zero chance that the authorities will not give banks the keys to the vault." Well, they just gave one trader the keys to the vault: unlimited naked shorting to crash the silver market and put billions in his pocket. And you thought China was going to set a good example for COMEX?
Honestly (tinfoil hat on), I think it was done with approval of the Chinese gov. NOTHING happens without backdoors and backchannels over there! Do they want to crush the silver price to let their industrials get cheaper physical? Pull more in from the west? I don't know, but I strongly doubt this is a rogue actor.
You don't accumulate billions in China without having high level contacts!
Hmm . . . Remember what happened to Jack Ma of Alibaba? He had high level contacts, . . . but still his 2020 Ant IPO was cancelled and then he was hit with an anti-trust investigation and fine.
Of course, he first made the mistake of criticizing China's financial regulators . . .
I doubt that Mr. Ma was penalized simply for criticizing financial regulators. Rather, he was penalized for believing himself to be more powerful that than China's financial regulators, and acting accordingly.
That's one of the big differences between China's system and ours in the West. No financial entity in China, no matter how wealthy or prominent, dictates financial terms to the government.
It's possible that SilverTrade is overstating the case against Mr. Bian. Yes, he was publicly identified, which is in fact a good thing for market transparency. However I'm not sure that his bet was "outsized" considering the normal scale of the market, both on the SHFE and globally. And if that's the case, why would he be penalized for what he did?
After all is said and done, it's reported that he made a winning bet and profited about $140 million. That's a lot of money to be sure, but in the big picture it's not a crazy amount.
""2. On Feb 5, 674 MILLION oz of paper silver were dumped on the Shanghai Futures Exchange in a SINGLE morning session — almost double annual global mine production.
3. The Shanghai Futures Exchange immediately cracked down — banning 6 groups of linked accounts from opening new positions, citing “abnormal trading behavior.” Official notice [2026] No. 37.""
Your guess is as good as mine how many "linked accounts" directly tie back to Bian. But I am suspecting a lot...
As seems usual in these situations, there appears to be conflicting information about what happened. Let's try to bring some clarity.
According to Gemini, the open interest on the current SHFE silver futures contract is 225,425. But a SHFE silver contract isn't for 5000 ounces, like the COMEX. A SHFE contract is for 15 kg, about 480 ounces. It's smaller by a tenth.
The current open interest on the SHFE amounts to about 108 million ounces. So the claim that 674 million ounces were sold on the morning of Feb. 5 does not seem realistic. Neither is the claim that it represented double the annual mine output, which is currently about 800 million ounces.
I was able to establish that the SHFE has taken some recent disciplinary action against 16 silver traders, amounting to a month-long ban on them opening new positions. No word on whether Mr. Bian was one of them. However the precise reasons for the bans aren't disclosed. It could be for market manipulation, or it might simply be due to lack of disclosure by the traders concerning who they were representing. Regardless, given that the penalty was not punitive, it doesn't suggest that serious malfeasance was going on.
I emphasize that I don't know all the details, so I accept that some of the rumors could be true. Nevertheless I can also see how the big market swing at the SHFE, coming on thin liquidity and high volatility, could have naturally acted in the way it did. Without a dastardly billionaire being the sole cause, I mean.
Mr. Bian was heavily long on silver, up until two months ago. Then, apparently sensing the top, he reportedly went short. That sounds like normal trading to me. And it was a pure short play. He didn't push the market in one direction while secretly betting on the other. That's where I get crazy, like say when a bullion bank or ETF encourages people to buy silver, while simultaneously shorting it.
"This public exposure serves as a stark message and warning to Bian and any other traders contemplating similar naked short positions in the future, emphasizing that outsized bets disrupting market stability will not go unnoticed or unpunished."
"A parallel can be drawn to the case of Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder who faced swift regulatory backlash after publicly criticizing financial overseers in 2020; authorities halted Ant Group’s massive IPO, imposed hefty fines on his empire, and prompted Ma’s extended retreat from the spotlight. Just as that episode signaled to China’s tech moguls the limits of their influence, the strategic disclosure of Bian’s silver short underscores regulators’ intolerance for speculative plays that could undermine the broader economic agenda, particularly in strategic commodities like silver."
Public exposure of your trading doesn't necessarily seem like a warning or punishment to me. It sounds like market transparency, exactly what you'd want when someone takes a concentrated position.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm simply saying that so far there's no evidence of how and why there was a big run on silver in Shanghai. Was it a mere trader that unscrupulously put billions in his pocket? If so, then I refer you to President Xi's comments above. The government of China does not look kindly on such things.
OTOH and IMHO, I could see the government of China, perhaps on behalf of a consortium of industrial silver users acting to lower the price. Yet even so, the price of silver in China today is still far higher than at the COMEX.
We're all adults here, so let's be candid. There will never be an utterly free market for goods and services. Markets will always be regulated and rightly so. The question becomes, who do you trust to create the rules and administer the market? Do you believe a private enterprise colluding with the biggest banks will run the market honestly while looking out for the small investor? I believe the evidence is clear that it does not. Meanwhile, we have an upstart market in Shanghai that isn't paper leveraged 250:1, working under a government that doesn't take kindly to financial shenanigans by billionaires.
It's early days of course for the Shanghai market. Perhaps in time it will turn out to be a pit of vipers as well. But at the very least, it has some fundamental differences and works under a government that sounds sincere in wanting its financial industry to work for the public good, not corporate profits.
Chinese billionaire trader Bian Ximing (aka the “King of Futures”) built a massive naked short position of 450 tons (30,000 contracts, ~$300M value) on silver futures via the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) in late January 2026. This exceeded SHFE’s total registered silver inventory (~350 tons), sparking manipulation accusations amid silver’s rally to $100/oz., netting ~$288-500M Chinese regulators "intervened" after the fact, never mind the trade should never have been booked in the first place.
So if I understand you correctly, Mr. Bian made a risky bet by shorting silver, and then the bet paid off. As for how he was able to acquire all those contracts, and whether that was acceptable under SFE rules, I don't know. But presumably, if he violated market rules he will be penalized for it. However if he didn't then he just made a winning bet that the silver market was overheated in the short term. It was probably something that all of us should've anticipated. Am I missing something nefarious here?
No, nothing nefarious about that. The problem however is that his whole short position is larger than the total amount in the futures vault. Nothing nefarious, but there is no way that he can fulfill his obligations. THAT is nefarious. Because Shanghai is physical. And he won't be able to deliver. Simple as that.
His bet paid off because COMEX did something that they shouldn't have done (see my other article about the VLs). But likely he kept his shorts running. And THEN he crashed the price on the SHFE. That's is what wasn't allowed. Over-trading. And not a little bit over-trading. He probably wanted to get out as he saw that 70 was a pretty strong floor.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in a properly functioning market, the job of short sellers is to bring the market back to reality if it gets overheated. Isn’t that what Mr. Bian did?
Mr. Bian is long on gold, long on copper, and he was long on silver up to last November. Then, sensing the market was due for a reversal, he shorted silver. His position was large for sure, but given that the COMEX crash preceded Shanghai’s, it might be overstating the case to say that he crashed it.
However, that said, I don’t know the ins and outs of the trading he did. Bad if he broke any trading rules, and if he did I hope he’s penalized for it.
I gotta hunch China will be paying very close attention to the temptation to hyper financialize their economy. Europe and the US have been great teachers.
So JPMC moving metals tading desk to Shanghai? That tells me which way the wind is blowing. When the music stops, there will be a lot of people holding paper and a few people holding cool, shiny silver.
JPM is for all practical purposes a USGOV agency, which probably is moving it's NY trading desk to Singapore based on GEOPOLITICAL stratagems just as much as metals trading.
Just because it currently looks like China will become the economic powerhouse in 5-10 years doesn't mean that a few bumps in the road can't be finagled which will divert China into the weeds...
Remember, Epstein was a bankster agent engaged in "international intelligence work", with late 70s onward Intel Community ties *directly* to American, English, French, German, Saudi Arabian & Israeli Intel Operations (Mike Benz enters the chat).
The psyop & intel games are much *deeper*, *pervasive* & *darker* than normal humanity can fathom, I personally only skimmed the history & it was enough to cause me to *stop* 😈
When considering geopolitics & related economic "investments" it is useful to consider Sun Tzu's key strategic principles:
"Focus on knowing yourself/enemy, deception, adaptation, timing, using strength against weakness, aiming for victory without fighting, & understanding the terrain/environment for effective strategic thinking in business and life."
This situation is evolving constantly, with weeks like years & months like decades, try not to become road kill ♱
Yeah - they were given like what - 1 week to move without much advance notice. Like pick up your families and move to Shanghai? Eff that I would of said to them.
I quit. But that is just me - I ain't married to mammon.
Great article and reminder of Warren Buffet’s saying “If you sit down at a poker game and don’t figure out who the patsy is, then you’re it!” Recent volatility in silver reminded me of my patsy status in a rigged game. Better to hold physical outside the clutches of the banksters and sleep well at night.
My brain works way too slow to play futures. But I love this stack and learn a ton from it constantly. Just an old stacker wanting to leave something decent to my kids one day. And even though it is technically safer, those price crashes still sting like a 🐝 …ch.
If you're thinking about it that way, first I'd suggest to educate your next of kin of the value of money. REAL money. And I would suggest gold jewelry. More under the radar than coins or bars. More difficult to verify too though...
I have come to the same conclusion. Silver has always been manipulated (raped) and now it has been politicised. This is not for the feint-hearted. People are playing middle-class BINGO and while everyone loves a story they become a moth to the flame. If you want to speculate, then try ✅ Uranium miners and uranium. It’s ENERGY AND IT IS WITHOUT ANY QUESTION THE FUTURE. Justin Hune (youtube) and you can sub to him as he ONLY deals in this sector and knows his stuff. Full disclosure - I am not being paid to tell you that.
"" Most significantly, China achieved what the West abandoned: working thorium reactors. The TMSR-LF1, a 2-megawatt thorium molten salt reactor, reached criticality in October 2023 and has operated successfully since. On April 17, 2025, Chinese scientists achieved the world’s first refueling of an operational thorium reactor without shutdown - a feat never previously accomplished.
Thorium offers compelling advantages over uranium. It’s three times more abundant. It produces 100 times less long-lived radioactive waste. And above all: thorium reactors can’t melt down - the physics prevent it. The molten salt design operates at an atmospheric pressure, eliminating any risk of steam explosions. If power fails, the fuel salt drains into tanks where fission stops automatically.""
I predict that within a decade or so that all nuclear energy tech that predated Thorium reactors (TR) will be shutdown & outlawed, except those needed to produce weapons grade materials.
The safety of humanity, along with the track record of TR, will demand it...
Another decade after that, or so, reactor installations will come in all sizes, even powering small cities, hamlets & towns, completely replacing current energy generation.
And to think USGOV had this tech 50+ years ago & abandoned it...
A coinkydink I'm sure 😉
I wonder how long it will take historians to be able grok & allowed to pin the Fukushima nuke accident, which is still poisoning the oceans, on Crony Capitalism CULTure?
This time is different, but not for the reasons most think.
We need to stop looking at Silver as 'Poor Man's Gold' or a monetary play. That narrative is dead.
Silver has undergone a Phase Change. It is now the 'Industrial Oxygen' for System C (AI chips, advanced electronics) and System B (solar, EV).
You can hike margins to kill a speculative long squeeze (like the Hunt Brothers), but you cannot margin-call Physics.
Nvidia needs silver to run. Solar farms need silver to generate watts. The drain on COMEX isn't a 'raid'; it's the physical world (System B) suffocating the paper world (System A) because the paper market priced a strategic resource like a legacy trinket.
When the industrial demand is structural and inelastic, the 'paper price' becomes irrelevant. The real price is what you pay to get the metal delivered to the factory door.
Great read, only thing I trust is real metal in my hands. Zero counter party risk, no time decay, you own it, I advise to own Bullion in your hands, especially during a possible currency reset or collapse scenario plus a much better tax treatment and your out of the system they control. Buy bullion
The only differential I have to this entire thought experiment is this: "Physical gold. Boring. Won’t do 10x." I'll take How May I Receive 2X to 4X During a ClusterF, Alex? From my 64 y/o vantage, capital preservation is *everything*. The "gains" I seek are not leverage, just treading water as the "system"/debt, full RESET.
I do have physical. That's my foundation. Can't do anything without that. All I'm talking about is what I do with the rest of the money that I allow myself to play with...
No disrespect intended; what I meant to convey is my internal contemplation as to would it be best to convert current trading account to physical gold or play and parlay this casino market. I suspect we have similar calculus underway.
No disrespect detected 😉. I always say to people: first out of debt, then physical, then stocks or miners or anything. Can't jump the ladder.
And yes indeed. I think I will be getting more conservative for the time being. Never corner a wounded animal... And even though there might be HUGE life changing gains here... I don't know. Time to reduce my risk a bit.
I'm long on silver miners only (not taking any chances with silver physical ETFs).
The only reason why i believe in silver right now is that China has 0 interest to save the Western banks from their schemes.
Physical silver can't be printed. That's the second reason i believe in silver rally.
What can happen though is physical silver getting seized for cash compensation "at market prices" in Western prices though, imo, if things get out of control.
There's a lot in Western physical silver ETF that can be seized this way. Can buy 1-2 years of supply at current rate.
True, at the detriment of the viability of the exchanges. So you can do this once. But not anymore after that... No1's going to believe you anymore. With anything.
So much chat about Silver and this and that, to the moon etc. but my thinking is that ‘it’s one big club and we ain’t in it’ Not saying we can’t make money but let’s dance near the door whilst banging on it.
There's some discontinuities in your hypotheses, which aren't important, but I have two words for you:
Social. Contagion.
The West has devolved from Political Contagion > Revolutionary Contagion > Social Contagion ☠︎︎
Add a generation of midwits with enough emotional IQ to pretend they're "winners" & you arrive at, possible/probably, Civilization Collapse.
The Crony Capitalist Class is up against it, but luckily for them the midwits are obsessed with sociopolitical change, when the real threat & problem that lies beneath is socioeconomic.
Add to that equation the capriciousness of Putin, Xi & Trump, where sovereign "god mode" can be unleashed at any moment, the Crony Capitalist Class can stay in the shadows emitting an air of "stability" with a neon sign that says, "Believe & Trust Us".
Example:
"If COMEX and LBMA become obvious jokes, if SLV turns into a cash-settlement scam, business moves to Shanghai. Not because China is more trustworthy. But because at least they actually deliver physical when demanded."
But, wait a moment, didn't Emperor XI just implement strict export licensing controls on silver, classifying it as a strategic material to secure supply for domestic industries like solar and EVs.
You sure Shanghai will deliver that Ag you just bought.
You sure about that?
See how it works?
Add to that scenario Monroe Doctine II that clearly intends on removing China's access to Ag et al. mined in the Western Hemisphere & you've got a whole other level of "complications".
Meanwhile, Silver reserves appear to be depleting in The West, probably are, but with the opaque nature of "authorized members" that control the COMEX/LBMA can any one be absolutely sure about "published" numbers?
No one knows how long the music will continue to play, but the only *solution* I can see right now is to buy physical & hold with an expectation that the *real* squeeze might be more than a year away...
The other choice, playing paper trading games at the Crony Capitalist Casino *will* only end in drama & losses; Look what just happened week before last with Hunt Bros. 3.0 ☠︎︎
There are bigger multifaceted issues at play here, buying Ag for quick ROI is probably a fools game, unless you're In The Club you're going to get clubbed like a baby seal.
Fair points, where I don't have a good answer to. I'll be reminiscing about my positioning today. I have my physical, and don't really want to go overweight there. I like the leverage that my cash gives me. Hence I'm starting to lean miners again. Which has all their own risk factors too... No easy way to make lots of money consistently 😁. And I'm not a bankster, so robbing COMEX is out of the question 😢
(ha, ha....) Maybe so.....but here is the thing - in the long run supply and demand CANNOT be suspended - it is a timeless LAW of nature - even if economics is such a soft-science full of bs and "run" by self-interested parties who could care less about everyday Dick & Jane. Let them feel the squeeze for all the harm they have caused - known and proven.
Good article. I'm not sure if you have read my article which I published a few days ago but you covered almost all the points which I covered in mine (in case you're interested): https://substack.com/home/post/p-186492131
Interesting play on the warrants though. I definitely expect a lower price this month so maybe it's better to wait and see what happens after the March deliveries. They still have a lot of room to push the price down with further hikes or by any other measure.
I have some lotto OTM calls in case price explodes and they let $SLV run a bit further.
It’s a great read! And more detailed than mine. I’ve had some mental notes I wanted to make, but forgot them. Didn’t re-read to write them down (no time) sorry.
The article state "Companies like Wheaton Precious Metals or Franco-Nevada sometimes have warrants outstanding. I cannot find any major producers that have tradable warrants. Does anyone know of any?
"I’ve learned not to underestimate the establishment’s creativity when crushing challenges to the system."
Oh yes. The established players don't care whether you're trying to rob the system or reform it. Either way you will be attacked with great vigor. This applies to politics and economics equally, as they work hand in hand.
COMEX will not reform itself, nor will politicians force it to. The only hope for a functional market is Shanghai. There, at least, there's a non-zero chance that the authorities will not give banks the keys to the vault.
From a recent speech by Xi Jinping, President of China:
"[We must] adhere to the people-centered value orientation. The financial cause led by our Party is ultimately intended to benefit the people, which is very different from the nature of some countries' finance serving capital and serving a small number of rich people. In the new era, financial work should stand firm in the people's position, enhance the diversity, inclusiveness and accessibility of services, and better protect the rights and interests of financial consumers.
[We also must ensure] that the real economy remains our fundamental purpose. The real economy is the foundation of finance, finance is the bloodline of the real economy, and serving the real economy is the vocation of finance. If you are keen on self-circulation and self-expansion, [hyper-financialization, in other words] finance will become passive water, uncut wood, and sooner or later a crisis will be formed. China's finance must adhere to the service of the real economy, promote high-quality development, and must not be out of the real situation."
Generally speaking, when the highest authorities in China say, "This is the way it's going to be," they mean it. And if you'd like the evidence of that, simply look at how the government of China has gone after their billionaires, like Jack Ma (Alibaba), Jimmy Lai (China Daily) and the Evergrande crew.
In China, banks and oligarchs don't tell the government how things are going to work. It's the other way 'round.
Isn’t that what trump was saying during the campaign? What happened to that 🤔
I suppose it’s a matter of credibility. Who do you believe is most likely to follow through on the things they say: Trump or the Government of China?
Trump has retreated every time the market tanks but he has a lot of incentives going into the midterms. After that, who knows. I suspect he’ll focus on milking the presidency for as much wealth as possible like suing the IRS for a billion dollars.
Xi on the other hand will try because it’s in his interest and that of the Party to do because their economy is in the dumps and he doesn’t want riots in the streets from unemployed young men challenging his leadership. Just my thoughts, could be totally wrong😊
Yes, and it doesn't hurt that Xi hopes to be "president for life", while Trump has the clock ticking on his term.
Let’s hope it’s trump’s last turn🤞
Suing the IRS...why didn't I ever think of that?
To quote Charlie Munger, “show me the incentives and I’ll show you the results”
"The only hope for a functional market is Shanghai. There, at least, there's a non-zero chance that the authorities will not give banks the keys to the vault." Well, they just gave one trader the keys to the vault: unlimited naked shorting to crash the silver market and put billions in his pocket. And you thought China was going to set a good example for COMEX?
Honestly (tinfoil hat on), I think it was done with approval of the Chinese gov. NOTHING happens without backdoors and backchannels over there! Do they want to crush the silver price to let their industrials get cheaper physical? Pull more in from the west? I don't know, but I strongly doubt this is a rogue actor.
You don't accumulate billions in China without having high level contacts!
Hmm . . . Remember what happened to Jack Ma of Alibaba? He had high level contacts, . . . but still his 2020 Ant IPO was cancelled and then he was hit with an anti-trust investigation and fine.
Of course, he first made the mistake of criticizing China's financial regulators . . .
I doubt that Mr. Ma was penalized simply for criticizing financial regulators. Rather, he was penalized for believing himself to be more powerful that than China's financial regulators, and acting accordingly.
That's one of the big differences between China's system and ours in the West. No financial entity in China, no matter how wealthy or prominent, dictates financial terms to the government.
It's possible that SilverTrade is overstating the case against Mr. Bian. Yes, he was publicly identified, which is in fact a good thing for market transparency. However I'm not sure that his bet was "outsized" considering the normal scale of the market, both on the SHFE and globally. And if that's the case, why would he be penalized for what he did?
After all is said and done, it's reported that he made a winning bet and profited about $140 million. That's a lot of money to be sure, but in the big picture it's not a crazy amount.
https://no01.substack.com/p/oops-they-did-it-again?utm_source=publication-search
https://x.com/w_thejazz/status/2019646213914783825
""2. On Feb 5, 674 MILLION oz of paper silver were dumped on the Shanghai Futures Exchange in a SINGLE morning session — almost double annual global mine production.
3. The Shanghai Futures Exchange immediately cracked down — banning 6 groups of linked accounts from opening new positions, citing “abnormal trading behavior.” Official notice [2026] No. 37.""
Your guess is as good as mine how many "linked accounts" directly tie back to Bian. But I am suspecting a lot...
As seems usual in these situations, there appears to be conflicting information about what happened. Let's try to bring some clarity.
According to Gemini, the open interest on the current SHFE silver futures contract is 225,425. But a SHFE silver contract isn't for 5000 ounces, like the COMEX. A SHFE contract is for 15 kg, about 480 ounces. It's smaller by a tenth.
The current open interest on the SHFE amounts to about 108 million ounces. So the claim that 674 million ounces were sold on the morning of Feb. 5 does not seem realistic. Neither is the claim that it represented double the annual mine output, which is currently about 800 million ounces.
I was able to establish that the SHFE has taken some recent disciplinary action against 16 silver traders, amounting to a month-long ban on them opening new positions. No word on whether Mr. Bian was one of them. However the precise reasons for the bans aren't disclosed. It could be for market manipulation, or it might simply be due to lack of disclosure by the traders concerning who they were representing. Regardless, given that the penalty was not punitive, it doesn't suggest that serious malfeasance was going on.
I emphasize that I don't know all the details, so I accept that some of the rumors could be true. Nevertheless I can also see how the big market swing at the SHFE, coming on thin liquidity and high volatility, could have naturally acted in the way it did. Without a dastardly billionaire being the sole cause, I mean.
Mr. Bian was heavily long on silver, up until two months ago. Then, apparently sensing the top, he reportedly went short. That sounds like normal trading to me. And it was a pure short play. He didn't push the market in one direction while secretly betting on the other. That's where I get crazy, like say when a bullion bank or ETF encourages people to buy silver, while simultaneously shorting it.
SilverTrade wrote about this on Feb 6th:
"This public exposure serves as a stark message and warning to Bian and any other traders contemplating similar naked short positions in the future, emphasizing that outsized bets disrupting market stability will not go unnoticed or unpunished."
"A parallel can be drawn to the case of Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder who faced swift regulatory backlash after publicly criticizing financial overseers in 2020; authorities halted Ant Group’s massive IPO, imposed hefty fines on his empire, and prompted Ma’s extended retreat from the spotlight. Just as that episode signaled to China’s tech moguls the limits of their influence, the strategic disclosure of Bian’s silver short underscores regulators’ intolerance for speculative plays that could undermine the broader economic agenda, particularly in strategic commodities like silver."
https://silvertrade.com/news/precious-metals/silver-news/ccp-intervention-in-bian-ximings-massive-silver-short-may-supercharge-the-next-leg-of-the-bull/
Public exposure of your trading doesn't necessarily seem like a warning or punishment to me. It sounds like market transparency, exactly what you'd want when someone takes a concentrated position.
And you know the above how, exactly?
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm simply saying that so far there's no evidence of how and why there was a big run on silver in Shanghai. Was it a mere trader that unscrupulously put billions in his pocket? If so, then I refer you to President Xi's comments above. The government of China does not look kindly on such things.
OTOH and IMHO, I could see the government of China, perhaps on behalf of a consortium of industrial silver users acting to lower the price. Yet even so, the price of silver in China today is still far higher than at the COMEX.
We're all adults here, so let's be candid. There will never be an utterly free market for goods and services. Markets will always be regulated and rightly so. The question becomes, who do you trust to create the rules and administer the market? Do you believe a private enterprise colluding with the biggest banks will run the market honestly while looking out for the small investor? I believe the evidence is clear that it does not. Meanwhile, we have an upstart market in Shanghai that isn't paper leveraged 250:1, working under a government that doesn't take kindly to financial shenanigans by billionaires.
It's early days of course for the Shanghai market. Perhaps in time it will turn out to be a pit of vipers as well. But at the very least, it has some fundamental differences and works under a government that sounds sincere in wanting its financial industry to work for the public good, not corporate profits.
Chinese billionaire trader Bian Ximing (aka the “King of Futures”) built a massive naked short position of 450 tons (30,000 contracts, ~$300M value) on silver futures via the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) in late January 2026. This exceeded SHFE’s total registered silver inventory (~350 tons), sparking manipulation accusations amid silver’s rally to $100/oz., netting ~$288-500M Chinese regulators "intervened" after the fact, never mind the trade should never have been booked in the first place.
So if I understand you correctly, Mr. Bian made a risky bet by shorting silver, and then the bet paid off. As for how he was able to acquire all those contracts, and whether that was acceptable under SFE rules, I don't know. But presumably, if he violated market rules he will be penalized for it. However if he didn't then he just made a winning bet that the silver market was overheated in the short term. It was probably something that all of us should've anticipated. Am I missing something nefarious here?
No, nothing nefarious about that. The problem however is that his whole short position is larger than the total amount in the futures vault. Nothing nefarious, but there is no way that he can fulfill his obligations. THAT is nefarious. Because Shanghai is physical. And he won't be able to deliver. Simple as that.
His bet paid off because COMEX did something that they shouldn't have done (see my other article about the VLs). But likely he kept his shorts running. And THEN he crashed the price on the SHFE. That's is what wasn't allowed. Over-trading. And not a little bit over-trading. He probably wanted to get out as he saw that 70 was a pretty strong floor.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in a properly functioning market, the job of short sellers is to bring the market back to reality if it gets overheated. Isn’t that what Mr. Bian did?
Mr. Bian is long on gold, long on copper, and he was long on silver up to last November. Then, sensing the market was due for a reversal, he shorted silver. His position was large for sure, but given that the COMEX crash preceded Shanghai’s, it might be overstating the case to say that he crashed it.
However, that said, I don’t know the ins and outs of the trading he did. Bad if he broke any trading rules, and if he did I hope he’s penalized for it.
I gotta hunch China will be paying very close attention to the temptation to hyper financialize their economy. Europe and the US have been great teachers.
Yes, unwitting but effective teachers.
So JPMC moving metals tading desk to Shanghai? That tells me which way the wind is blowing. When the music stops, there will be a lot of people holding paper and a few people holding cool, shiny silver.
😉 I'll be holding both!
JPM is for all practical purposes a USGOV agency, which probably is moving it's NY trading desk to Singapore based on GEOPOLITICAL stratagems just as much as metals trading.
Just because it currently looks like China will become the economic powerhouse in 5-10 years doesn't mean that a few bumps in the road can't be finagled which will divert China into the weeds...
Remember, Epstein was a bankster agent engaged in "international intelligence work", with late 70s onward Intel Community ties *directly* to American, English, French, German, Saudi Arabian & Israeli Intel Operations (Mike Benz enters the chat).
The psyop & intel games are much *deeper*, *pervasive* & *darker* than normal humanity can fathom, I personally only skimmed the history & it was enough to cause me to *stop* 😈
When considering geopolitics & related economic "investments" it is useful to consider Sun Tzu's key strategic principles:
"Focus on knowing yourself/enemy, deception, adaptation, timing, using strength against weakness, aiming for victory without fighting, & understanding the terrain/environment for effective strategic thinking in business and life."
This situation is evolving constantly, with weeks like years & months like decades, try not to become road kill ♱
Yeah - they were given like what - 1 week to move without much advance notice. Like pick up your families and move to Shanghai? Eff that I would of said to them.
I quit. But that is just me - I ain't married to mammon.
Losers.
Singapore -> https://discoveryalert.com.au/global-financial-infrastructure-precious-metals-trading-2025/
Ah, Singapore. Thank you.
Great article and reminder of Warren Buffet’s saying “If you sit down at a poker game and don’t figure out who the patsy is, then you’re it!” Recent volatility in silver reminded me of my patsy status in a rigged game. Better to hold physical outside the clutches of the banksters and sleep well at night.
My brain works way too slow to play futures. But I love this stack and learn a ton from it constantly. Just an old stacker wanting to leave something decent to my kids one day. And even though it is technically safer, those price crashes still sting like a 🐝 …ch.
If you're thinking about it that way, first I'd suggest to educate your next of kin of the value of money. REAL money. And I would suggest gold jewelry. More under the radar than coins or bars. More difficult to verify too though...
I have come to the same conclusion. Silver has always been manipulated (raped) and now it has been politicised. This is not for the feint-hearted. People are playing middle-class BINGO and while everyone loves a story they become a moth to the flame. If you want to speculate, then try ✅ Uranium miners and uranium. It’s ENERGY AND IT IS WITHOUT ANY QUESTION THE FUTURE. Justin Hune (youtube) and you can sub to him as he ONLY deals in this sector and knows his stuff. Full disclosure - I am not being paid to tell you that.
I guess you & Justin Hune haven't heard about Thorium reactors 😉
FYI: https://no01.substack.com/p/energy-as-the-river-of-civilization
"" Most significantly, China achieved what the West abandoned: working thorium reactors. The TMSR-LF1, a 2-megawatt thorium molten salt reactor, reached criticality in October 2023 and has operated successfully since. On April 17, 2025, Chinese scientists achieved the world’s first refueling of an operational thorium reactor without shutdown - a feat never previously accomplished.
Thorium offers compelling advantages over uranium. It’s three times more abundant. It produces 100 times less long-lived radioactive waste. And above all: thorium reactors can’t melt down - the physics prevent it. The molten salt design operates at an atmospheric pressure, eliminating any risk of steam explosions. If power fails, the fuel salt drains into tanks where fission stops automatically.""
I predict that within a decade or so that all nuclear energy tech that predated Thorium reactors (TR) will be shutdown & outlawed, except those needed to produce weapons grade materials.
The safety of humanity, along with the track record of TR, will demand it...
Another decade after that, or so, reactor installations will come in all sizes, even powering small cities, hamlets & towns, completely replacing current energy generation.
And to think USGOV had this tech 50+ years ago & abandoned it...
A coinkydink I'm sure 😉
I wonder how long it will take historians to be able grok & allowed to pin the Fukushima nuke accident, which is still poisoning the oceans, on Crony Capitalism CULTure?
I kid, I kid 😁
Huhn
This time is different, but not for the reasons most think.
We need to stop looking at Silver as 'Poor Man's Gold' or a monetary play. That narrative is dead.
Silver has undergone a Phase Change. It is now the 'Industrial Oxygen' for System C (AI chips, advanced electronics) and System B (solar, EV).
You can hike margins to kill a speculative long squeeze (like the Hunt Brothers), but you cannot margin-call Physics.
Nvidia needs silver to run. Solar farms need silver to generate watts. The drain on COMEX isn't a 'raid'; it's the physical world (System B) suffocating the paper world (System A) because the paper market priced a strategic resource like a legacy trinket.
When the industrial demand is structural and inelastic, the 'paper price' becomes irrelevant. The real price is what you pay to get the metal delivered to the factory door.
I just covered it in my early piece (From Precious Metal to Industrial Metal: A New Silver Pricing Model) "https://chinarbitrageur.substack.com/p/from-precious-metal-to-industrial?r=71ctq6
Great read, only thing I trust is real metal in my hands. Zero counter party risk, no time decay, you own it, I advise to own Bullion in your hands, especially during a possible currency reset or collapse scenario plus a much better tax treatment and your out of the system they control. Buy bullion
Thank you. I'm holding June SLV calls and am having the same thoughts. I like your plan and will also be watching Feb 27th.
Articulated in a very lucid manner! Enjoyed reading it, margin was 100k Friday on the Comex site, will see what’s the number tomorrow!
The only differential I have to this entire thought experiment is this: "Physical gold. Boring. Won’t do 10x." I'll take How May I Receive 2X to 4X During a ClusterF, Alex? From my 64 y/o vantage, capital preservation is *everything*. The "gains" I seek are not leverage, just treading water as the "system"/debt, full RESET.
I do have physical. That's my foundation. Can't do anything without that. All I'm talking about is what I do with the rest of the money that I allow myself to play with...
No disrespect intended; what I meant to convey is my internal contemplation as to would it be best to convert current trading account to physical gold or play and parlay this casino market. I suspect we have similar calculus underway.
No disrespect detected 😉. I always say to people: first out of debt, then physical, then stocks or miners or anything. Can't jump the ladder.
And yes indeed. I think I will be getting more conservative for the time being. Never corner a wounded animal... And even though there might be HUGE life changing gains here... I don't know. Time to reduce my risk a bit.
I'm long on silver miners only (not taking any chances with silver physical ETFs).
The only reason why i believe in silver right now is that China has 0 interest to save the Western banks from their schemes.
Physical silver can't be printed. That's the second reason i believe in silver rally.
What can happen though is physical silver getting seized for cash compensation "at market prices" in Western prices though, imo, if things get out of control.
There's a lot in Western physical silver ETF that can be seized this way. Can buy 1-2 years of supply at current rate.
True, at the detriment of the viability of the exchanges. So you can do this once. But not anymore after that... No1's going to believe you anymore. With anything.
People have short memory.
2008 debacle has been forgotten by most.
REALLY? I can't believe people are that naive (I don't want to say stupid, but here it goes...)
So much chat about Silver and this and that, to the moon etc. but my thinking is that ‘it’s one big club and we ain’t in it’ Not saying we can’t make money but let’s dance near the door whilst banging on it.
💯 Absolutely! Stay nimble because we're in a small tank with a lot of sharks. Be ready to jump out when it's time.
There's some discontinuities in your hypotheses, which aren't important, but I have two words for you:
Social. Contagion.
The West has devolved from Political Contagion > Revolutionary Contagion > Social Contagion ☠︎︎
Add a generation of midwits with enough emotional IQ to pretend they're "winners" & you arrive at, possible/probably, Civilization Collapse.
The Crony Capitalist Class is up against it, but luckily for them the midwits are obsessed with sociopolitical change, when the real threat & problem that lies beneath is socioeconomic.
Add to that equation the capriciousness of Putin, Xi & Trump, where sovereign "god mode" can be unleashed at any moment, the Crony Capitalist Class can stay in the shadows emitting an air of "stability" with a neon sign that says, "Believe & Trust Us".
Example:
"If COMEX and LBMA become obvious jokes, if SLV turns into a cash-settlement scam, business moves to Shanghai. Not because China is more trustworthy. But because at least they actually deliver physical when demanded."
But, wait a moment, didn't Emperor XI just implement strict export licensing controls on silver, classifying it as a strategic material to secure supply for domestic industries like solar and EVs.
You sure Shanghai will deliver that Ag you just bought.
You sure about that?
See how it works?
Add to that scenario Monroe Doctine II that clearly intends on removing China's access to Ag et al. mined in the Western Hemisphere & you've got a whole other level of "complications".
Meanwhile, Silver reserves appear to be depleting in The West, probably are, but with the opaque nature of "authorized members" that control the COMEX/LBMA can any one be absolutely sure about "published" numbers?
No one knows how long the music will continue to play, but the only *solution* I can see right now is to buy physical & hold with an expectation that the *real* squeeze might be more than a year away...
The other choice, playing paper trading games at the Crony Capitalist Casino *will* only end in drama & losses; Look what just happened week before last with Hunt Bros. 3.0 ☠︎︎
There are bigger multifaceted issues at play here, buying Ag for quick ROI is probably a fools game, unless you're In The Club you're going to get clubbed like a baby seal.
Just my $0.20 😉
Fair points, where I don't have a good answer to. I'll be reminiscing about my positioning today. I have my physical, and don't really want to go overweight there. I like the leverage that my cash gives me. Hence I'm starting to lean miners again. Which has all their own risk factors too... No easy way to make lots of money consistently 😁. And I'm not a bankster, so robbing COMEX is out of the question 😢
An objective reader of this might conclude:
COMEX is TOAST
~
Edit: But at a minimum "all bets are off" - seems a safe bet on what happens the next few weeks.
Ultimately - it comes down to supply and demand - the most foundational concept in the "soft-science" of economics.
~
Ain't it time to call these pushers out? I think so.
Good article.
BK
For the sake of a little levity on this effing super bowl Sunday - I share this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9gOQgfPW4Y&list=RDd2uE4P3P5sI&index=4
Pump up the volume!
"Ultimately - it comes down to supply and demand"
Didn't you hear, that was suspended officially by USGOV for "authorized users" in 2008-2009 when they suspended mark-to-market?
"The war against everyone (financed by *fiat* everything) will continue until morale improves!" ~ The Crony Capitalists
(ha, ha....) Maybe so.....but here is the thing - in the long run supply and demand CANNOT be suspended - it is a timeless LAW of nature - even if economics is such a soft-science full of bs and "run" by self-interested parties who could care less about everyday Dick & Jane. Let them feel the squeeze for all the harm they have caused - known and proven.
Regards,
BK
🤔 Hmmm, didn't I just write an article that argues that before they would feel this squeeze they prefer to alter reality instead? 🙄
Basically "crony-capitalism" what Poet always rails against (correctly in my opinion)
I rail against crony capitalism - hell - yeah.
Bloody Well Right!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAuSRnTXZeg
I "love" this headline - tis a buying spree in China!
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4549237-gold-reclaims-5000-as-chinas-central-bank-extends-gold-buying-spree-for-15th-month
I did type "in the long run"......this could take awhile I reckon but seems the die has been cast and the writing is on the wall!
Regards,
BK
Good article. I'm not sure if you have read my article which I published a few days ago but you covered almost all the points which I covered in mine (in case you're interested): https://substack.com/home/post/p-186492131
Interesting play on the warrants though. I definitely expect a lower price this month so maybe it's better to wait and see what happens after the March deliveries. They still have a lot of room to push the price down with further hikes or by any other measure.
I have some lotto OTM calls in case price explodes and they let $SLV run a bit further.
Damn... I did not 😑. If I had known that I would have saved me the effort as it looks very complete!
I personally think the last thing they do is confiscate SLV's silver. How fast that "last" bit will be, that No1 knows...
I guess we share a brain cell. It is amazing how similar your thought process is 🙂
I want to take this opportunity to thank you so much for the restack!
It means a lot to me, the support has been insane. ❤️
It’s a great read! And more detailed than mine. I’ve had some mental notes I wanted to make, but forgot them. Didn’t re-read to write them down (no time) sorry.
Totally understand. Much love to you, let's see what this month brings us.
The article state "Companies like Wheaton Precious Metals or Franco-Nevada sometimes have warrants outstanding. I cannot find any major producers that have tradable warrants. Does anyone know of any?