/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>53697291
>>53697379
>>53697424
Anon, sit down for a moment. Let me tell you a story about a metal by the name of Osmium.

Osmium is the single rarest metal on Earth. It makes up about 50 parts per trillion in Earth's crust. Or, 0.00005 parts per million. For comparison, Silver makes up 0.1 parts per million, and gold, 0.001. Osmium is a useful material - it is the single densest naturally occurring element. It has a myriad of unique properties that should make it incredibly valuable. Is is absolutely essential to certain electrical contacts. Yet, despite it's myriad of use cases and extreme rarity, Osmium has lost 30% of it's value since 1980. What should've been an obvious investment, due to it's scarcity and usefulness, has instead, fallen severely. Do you know why this is? Because every possible use case for osmium can be filled by something cheaper. For each use of this element proposed, a far cheaper, more abundant one could be used instead. This is something that investors had failed to consider - and so, they lost their money.


The same is true for silver - and this is why 10 years ago it crashed in price and has not recovered since. I want you to look at the image you posted, in your first reply, as proof. Tell me, of all the use cases listed, how many of them could actually only be filled by silver? The answer is very few. Why would you use a rare, precious metal for something a cheaper substitute can do? Gold, just like silver, and most other precious metals, are not valuable because of what they can be used for - because there's not much most precious metals can do that other elements can not. The sole and single exception to this is Rhodium, having a use in catalytic converters no other material can fill. And that's it. What makes precious metals so valuable is their scarcity and historical value - not their use cases. Silver has neither of these, and it's uses can be filled by other, more abundant elements. Thus, it's price will not rise.