What is fascinating is the dynamic between physical and paper. Physical is being bought up at every opportunity. At any other time this would push the price up.
However, some time ago, in order to make owning physical more convenient, instruments were set up to allow investors to buy the equivalent physical as paper. This, in an honest transaction, would maintain the integrity of the physical market.
What we instead have, is a situation where, as in the Comex, 70 times more ounces have been sold than is held. The escape clause is that it can realise the debt in fiat not physical. This mirrors the Fed's and other reserve banks' printing of fiat where the debt far exceeds the tax revenues.
Similarly now with digital currency, we have the creation of wealth out of thin air. This is seen as a hedge against fiat or as a way of accumulating fiat. The smart operators are taking their crypto profits as physical.
I believe much of this translates as the emperor's new clothes. As long as he's the emperor, no one is willing to say anything. Somewhere, there will be trigger that will bring all this crashing down. Then physical will be the only true measure of wealth. Funnily enough, during this collapse, I think paper fiat may hold its own against digital in the short term as bank holidays and haircuts limit the exchange of goods and services.
However, this is where I think that I am weak in my uptake; I am not buying enough physical during this time of low interest money and cheap physical. I am not leveraging to my full potential. "What did you do through the Humongous Depression Grandpa?" "I lived okay, but I could have done better because I saw it coming."
