Silver had a strange year. After two years of investors walking away from the physical market, 2025 saw them come back. Not in a trickle, but in a rush concentrated into the final four months, as prices ripped through one record after another and dealers started rationing inventory.
According to the World Silver Survey 2026, global coin and net bar demand jumped 14% to 217.7 Moz in 2025, the first annual increase since 2022. It happened against a market where liquid silver was getting harder to find. Identifiable bullion inventories actually rose in aggregate, but a growing share was locked up in exchange-traded products (ETPs) or sitting in CME vaults rather than circulating in London. By October the squeeze was visible in the lease rates. Where the ETP story we covered earlier this year tracked institutional vault demand, this is about something different: retail investors physically walking into dealers and buying coins and bars.
What turned the tide? Three things, mostly arriving together. Inventories got tight enough to start showing up in lease rates. Interest rate expectations softened. And from September onwards, with silver clearing $40 and gold pushing through $4,000, a wave of retail money showed up chasing the move. Some of that was value-seeking, silver had lagged gold badly through the first half of the year. Some of it was straightforward fear of missing out.
A Tale of Two Markets: East vs. West
The global rebound masked a sharp geographic split. The 2025 recovery was led by Asia. Indian physical investment rose 33%. Chinese demand more than doubled to 11.9 Moz. Middle East demand tripled to a record 11.4 Moz, with buying showing up in countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt that have historically been gold-only markets.
Meanwhile, in the United States, retail investors did something close to the opposite. US physical investment nearly halved, falling 46% to its lowest level since at least 2010. The Survey's explanation is partly political. Republican-leaning retail investors, who make up a big share of the US silver buyer base, disengaged from precious metals after the election. Partly it's that with prices grinding higher all year, US buyers sold into the rally instead of chasing it.
By Country: Where the Buying Actually Happened
(Country-level data is reported under the "Physical Investment" series, which excludes commemorative coins. The headline 14% / 217.7 Moz figures earlier in this article come from the broader "Coin & Net Bar Demand" series. Both series tell the same story: a 2025 recovery driven by Asia, with the US as a sharp exception.)
The 10-Year Volatility Cycle
Zooming out over the historical surveys, coin and bar demand reveals itself as a highly volatile, sentiment-driven component of the market. Over the last decade, demand has routinely fluctuated between 150 Moz and 340 Moz.
The market reached a 10-year peak of 339.5 Moz in 2022, driven by post-pandemic safe-haven buying and inflation fears. When prices remained high but stagnant through 2023 and 2024, retail demand quickly saturated, retreating to a recent low of 190.9 Moz. The 2025 data confirms that when macroeconomic conditions align, such as rising geopolitical risks and a breakout in spot prices, retail investors aggressively return to physical assets.
The 2026 Outlook
Looking ahead, the momentum established in late 2025 is expected to carry forward. The Silver Institute projects coin and net bar demand will grow by an additional 18% in 2026, reaching 257.6 Moz, the highest level since the 2022 peak.
The growth is expected to be driven by a 57% recovery in the US market, though this only erases 2025's losses rather than reaching prior peaks. Price pullbacks attract bargain hunters and ongoing policy unpredictability reignites the need for portfolio diversification. While industrial demand faces headwinds from technological thrifting, robust physical investment will likely ensure the global silver market remains in a structural deficit throughout the year.
