Silver Is Crushing Crypto as Investors Run Back to Real Assets
Silver is absolutely leaving cryptocurrencies behind — and the shift is getting impossible to ignore.
On Monday alone, silver jumped more than 8%, smashing through $110 an ounce for the first time ever. Since early 2025, silver is up around 270%. During that same stretch, many major cryptocurrencies have gone the opposite way, especially when you measure them against silver.
The contrast is brutal.
Back in July 2025, one XRP token was worth about 0.10 ounces of silver. Today, it’s worth just over 0.02 ounces. That’s an 80% drop in only seven months. Bitcoin hasn’t escaped either — it’s down about 11% over the past year, while silver has exploded higher.
Because of that surge, silver’s total market value is now about three and a half times bigger than Bitcoin’s, dealing a serious blow to crypto’s long-running “digital gold” story.
Other coins are struggling too. Ethereum is down roughly 70% against silver, and Solana has lost more than 60% over the past year when priced in the metal. As analyst Benjamin Cowen put it, altcoins just keep hitting new lows when measured in silver.
Why silver is winning
This move isn’t happening by accident. Investors are nervous — and nervous money looks for things you can touch.
Trade war fears are back after President Donald Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Canada if it moves closer to China. That kind of talk sends investors straight into physical assets. Demand for silver has surged, especially in China and India, where buyers are snapping up kilogram bars so fast that some manufacturers are shifting away from jewelry just to keep up.
At the same time, expectations are growing that Trump could replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with someone more friendly to lower interest rates. Lower rates usually help metals like gold and silver, while pulling money away from riskier assets like crypto.
The bigger picture
Zoom out, and the shift looks massive.
With gold near $5,100 an ounce and silver above $110, the combined value of precious metals is now around $41 trillion. That’s nearly double the market value of the biggest U.S. tech stocks combined — and it completely dwarfs the entire cryptocurrency market.
As The Kobeissi Letter pointed out, silver is now outperforming Bitcoin by one of the widest margins ever recorded.
For now, the message from the market is loud and clear: when uncertainty rises, investors are choosing real, physical assets over digital promises.
