Goodbye Blue Monday*
- Edward Tierney
- Oct 15
- 2 min read
A New High for an Old Metal
Last time, it was a Friday.This time it was a Monday.
For the first time since keeping track, the value of silver has crossed the $50/oz boundary. It’s been trending upward — starting 2024 in the low $20s, kicking off 2025 at $30, then blasting through $40 at the end of August (Friday, 8/29/2025). Barely a month later, it’s crashed through a ceiling most forecasters didn’t expect until late next year — if at all: $50/oz.
The Squeeze on Silver
For decades, silver demand was split across three stable pillars: jewelry, investing, and industry. Each grew predictably, and supply generally kept pace.
Then came climate tech.
Solar panels. EV batteries. Sensors. Printed electronics.
In what felt like a blink, annual silver usage outstripped production. For the last five years, we’ve been running a structural deficit — using over 1 billion ounces annually while producing just 750–850 million.
To make matters worse, mine output keeps dropping as older veins wear thin and investment in new reserves lags — a hangover from a decade of lower, stable prices. Layer in jittery central banks, geopolitical tension, and speculative flows, and you get a metal market that’s anything but stable.
When Electronics Hit the Wall
All those forces weigh on price, but it’s the electronics industry that’s pushed the pedal to the metal.
Printed electronics are growing at 17–20% CAGR for the next decade. Nearly 70% of that market relies on silver inks, which means OEMs are watching their material costs double in under two years.
Some have started trimming usage — thinner traces, hybrid processes, or mixed-metal designs — but those are short-term patches, not long-term solutions. The math simply doesn’t work when your key ingredient is skyrocketing in cost.
Copper Steps In
The good news: a sustainable solution is already on the horizon. Copper.
It’s a thousand times more abundant, roughly a hundred times cheaper, and second in conductivity only to silver. Copper has been the backbone of electronics since electricity itself — it just hasn’t been printable at scale.
The main hurdle is oxidation: when copper inks dry, exposure to air can cause oxygen-based corrosion, reducing conductivity. But that barrier is starting to fall.
Advances in nano- and molecular-level electrochemistry are rewriting the rules. Startups like Copprium have already demonstrated lab-level results and are closing in on inks suitable for commercial production.
Turn the Page
Mondays get a bad rap — endings, beginnings, resets. But this one marks something bigger.
As silver crosses $50, the writing’s on the wall for every OEM, ink maker, and materials scientist watching their margins erode. The era of silver dominance in printed electronics is ending, and a new chapter is taking shape — one written in copper.
Copper isn’t the backup plan; it’s the comeback. Abundant, efficient, and ready to shoulder the weight of an industry built on conductivity and cost.
The future of flexible, sustainable electronics won’t be printed in silver anymore. It’ll be printed in copper.
*(with apologies to Kurt Vonnegut)
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