Could silver face a 1980-like crash?:Back then Hunt Brothers caused the decline; this year prices doubled due to three reasons

This is from 1980. The price of silver rose from $2 per ounce to $48. But how did this happen? Behind this were America’s Hunt brothers. One-third of the world’s silver was in the pockets of these two brothers. Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt increased silver holdings by more than 700%. This is no ordinary story of the Hunt brothers becoming rich. It involves greed, conspiracy and a crash known as Silver Thursday. We are telling this story of the Hunt brothers today because silver prices have doubled in the past 10 months. It has increased from ₹86,000 per kilo to as high as ₹1.70 lakh. So, can silver see a fall similar to what happened in the 1980s? What are the reasons for the surge in silver prices? Let’s understand this through the Hunt brothers’ story.. Chapter 1: The Beginning The Hunt brothers came from a wealthy family. Albeit, their father Haroldson Lafayette Hunt was born into a poor family, but became a businessman at the age of 22. He traded in cotton. Soon his focus shifted to oil, where he earned billions of dollars. After their father’s death, the Hunt brothers took over the billion-dollar family business. Chapter 2: Puppet Master In the late 1970s, the dollar was weakening and hyperinflation was predicted. During this time, the Hunt brothers’ focus shifted towards silver. They started accumulating physical silver and bought silver futures contracts. They were confident that silver’s value would skyrocket. Instead of taking cash settlement for futures contracts, they took physical silver delivery. Few people did this. When the Hunt brothers started buying silver in the early 70s, the price was $2 per ounce. By 1979 it reached $6. The Hunt brothers had more than 100 million ounces of silver. The Hunt brothers had become puppet masters of silver. Meaning, they were increasing prices according to their wishes. This led to supply issues in the silver market. In December 1979, silver prices reached $25 per ounce and in 1980 reached $50 per ounce. But the Hunt brothers continued buying silver by taking loans. Chapter 3: Silver Thursday Hunt Brothers’ plan was going perfectly, but intervention from Commodity Exchange, Inc. (COMEX) changed everything. A week before silver’s peak, on January 7, 1980, COMEX introduced Silver Rule 7. This imposed restrictions on buying commodities on margin. This made it difficult for Hunt Brothers to buy silver by borrowing from brokerages. This began to weaken Hunt Brothers’ position. Now comes the date which is known as Silver Thursday. On March 27, 1980, the Hunt brothers missed their margin call. Meaning, they couldn’t pay the money they owed. In this situation, the broker started selling silver and it fell by more than 50% in a single day. Chapter 4: Criminal Investigation After this crash, a criminal investigation was launched against the Hunt brothers. In 1986, they declared their company bankrupt. In 1988, they also declared personal bankruptcy. In 1988, a New York jury ordered the Hunt brothers to pay $130 million to Peru’s government mineral marketing company, as the crash had caused losses to that company. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also imposed a fine of $10 million each on both brothers. They were permanently banned from trading for manipulating silver reserves. Chapter 5: Future Historically, silver has seen two major declines. In 1980 and 2011. In 2011, silver reached close to $50 per ounce after 31 years. But after that, it started falling rapidly and dropped to $26 per ounce. This decline came due to speculation, regulatory action, and global fears. Now, after more than a decade, silver prices have again crossed $50 per ounce. In rupees per kilogram, this is around 1.55 lakhs. In this situation, many people are wondering if silver could see a similar decline in today’s time? Experts say that large fluctuations in silver prices are still seen today, but due to the safeguards put in place after Silver Thursday, market manipulation on such a large scale is not easy. At that time, there were very few regulations in the market. The fundamentals driving silver’s value have also changed significantly since Hunt’s time. Industrial demand has expanded beyond traditional photography into crucial modern technologies. Silver is used heavily in photovoltaic cells for solar panels. There are three major reasons for the current surge in silver prices… Analysts say that the price surge seen in 2025 is not a speculative bubble. Today’s prices have increased due to industrial demand and inflation hedging. Therefore, silver prices may see some minor corrections, but the risk of sharp crashes like 1980 and 2011 is now lower.