Mar 23
Comdex — Silver
Following the article on gold, it is time for the introduction of the second asset which will be available at the launch of the Comdex commodities DEX.
Silver in history
Similar to gold, silver has been around for centuries. It is also recognized as a valuable metal and has therefore a long history of being used as a means of payment.
In the period 4000–3500 B.C. silver was already being separated from lead to be used for decorations and creating means of payment. What is even more interesting, there are still multiple languages where the name for silver and money are equal (for example in French, where argent means both money and silver at the same time).
Just like gold, silver is used to create coins to mid 20th century. But silver has also been used in many other applications as well. To name a few:
- Silver was used as reflective background for mirrors
- Silver was also used to alloys with mercury by dentists as tooth filling for cavities
- Silver iodide are used around airports to reduce fog
- Silvernitrate is used to purify water
Silver has also a lot of other use cases, too many to put into this article.
Silver as an investment object
Also on the capital markets silver and gold are comparable. The price of silver is determined in American dollar per troy ounce (31,103476 gram).
The price development is much more interesting compared to gold though. In the 1980’s the price of silver reached a record due to speculation due to two American brother who had acquired an enormous amount of silver over the course of 10 years. Due to the scarcity of silver 1 troy ounce was worth $49! After this record the market collapsed and it took until April 2011 to reach the same level again. Nowadays silver is trading at around half this price ($24.96 per troy ounce (source)).
Overall silver has proven to be a nice alternative to invest in besides gold. Recently prices have started climbing again, so maybe a new bullrun is around the corner. Although history has also shown that large peaks (as in the 1980’s and in 2011) are followed by a series of small peaks and a long bearmarket (look at the graph for the time range 1990–2000). But who knows what will happen?
Comdex will offer you the possibility to expose yourself to the price movements of silver without the hassle of regular commodities exchanges. With your $XPRT, $ATOM, $UST and $CMDX you can mint your own synthetic silver and enjoy the thrill of finding out what price movements silver has in store for us!
