With gold enjoying a spectacular rise in 2025 and a strong start to 2026, many financial experts are now looking to silver to see if it will continue its recent rally. What key factors do we need to consider?
Why is silver cheaper than gold?
Financial writer Robert Kiyosaki recently stated that silver could exceed $100 (around £74) an ounce. At the current price of around £63, that doesn’t seem like too much of a hassle. But with gold priced at around £3,400 an ounce, we must first ask ourselves why one of these precious metals is worth so much more than the other.
If we look back at ancient culture, silver was often valued at a similar level to gold and in some cases valued even higher. Value typically arose from the abundance and easy access each culture had to the various metals, as well as their reverence for them. In modern times, the gold-to-silver ratio was stated in the U.S. Mint Act at the end of the 18th century as a deliberately modest 15:1.
Since then the ratio has risen to as high as 125:1, but at the time of writing it is around 56:1, having fallen quite a bit over the last month. Perhaps the biggest difference is that we traditionally view silver as a commodity, while gold has long been valued as a store of value. When we look at a CFD trading platform, we see that it is possible to trade both metals online with ease. This can be done in a number of ways, with CFDs being contracts for differences that use leverage and do not require actually purchasing the asset.
What causes the value of silver to rise?
The massive rise in the price of silver in 2025 is due to a combination of factors, with greater demand for electricity and reduced supply among the most notable factors driving the price steadily higher. It is also increasingly seen as a safe haven amid geopolitical tensions and a falling US dollar.
If we take a closer look at who is buying silver, we can see that India purchased almost 6,000 tonnes in 2025, which is almost a quarter of the total global supply. This massive demand for silver has been driven by the country’s ongoing plan to build gigafactories as part of the renewable energy revolution.
According to the Silver Institute’s 2025 report, the global mined supply of this metal was 835 million ounces, while demand was over a billion ounces. This means that the price of silver responds to a unique set of circumstances in which silver is in high demand for industrial reasons, a store of value, and a safe haven in turbulent times.
It is never easy to predict the future price of commodities, but the current silver market has raised hopes that the rally will continue in 2026. Whether it reaches £100 or not, this precious metal has proven its value in the modern world.
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