2011 was an outlier due to (what the professionals believe, I just read stuff) was a series of economic and political crisis in the US, there's a nice basic outline on Wikipedia of what was going on that drove it up to almost $50 USD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_as_an_investment#2010–2011
Because silver is essentially just a commodity, gold is both a comity and the store of value for nations and others. It's no surprise that both had a peak in 2011 due to a commodities spike, but the one with the store of value held up better long term.
It doesn't make sense to me either ... hopefully some big hedge funds start asking questions like this too.
Few reasons... Tens of millions oz of recycled silver from scraped solar panels and increasing by millions (first gen panels had over an ounce of silver per panel reaching 20 years end of life) Tens of millions oz more silver produced as a byproducts from new copper, zinc and lead mines. Solar panel are packaged for easy recycling (like catalytic converters) almost all recycled. Reduction of silver used in solar panels, today less than 10 grams per panel and silver free solar panels coming on the market like Tesla solar panels. Similarities of silver to Platinum prices. Price of platinum jump with usage of pt in catalytic converters. Every year less and less PT is used in each converters with better technology. Over 1 ounce of PT in first generation catalytic converters to less than 6 grams per converters. After initial shortage of PT old mines are expanded and new mines open up increasing supply. 5 to 10 years later flood of pt from scrapped cars becomes a large source of pt adding to supply. Catalytic Convertors packaged neatly for recycling and almost all are. Platinum prices are in steep decline because eventually electric, hydrogen or other no fossil fuel cars will replace the need for catalytic converters increase over the next ten years. Platinum a much rarer metal than gold is now cheaper than gold. Why there is price ceiling for silver. Silver constitute 10% of panel cost, in any manufacturing this is considered high. If silver prices increases, solar panel manufacturers increase research to use less and to eliminate silver. Already few technologies with proven an hitting the market. Worst case scenario if panel manufacturers went silverless that would mean 100m ounces of less industrial silver usage per annum over a few years. Coupled with recycled solar panels ramping up to 100m ounces per year over the decades
