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Charlie Garcia: China just nationalized silver without nationalizing a single mine
By Charlie Garcia
MarketWatch, New York
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Silver prices got crushed on Monday. By Thursday it may not matter.
On Jan. 1 China's new export-licensing regime takes effect, putting government gatekeepers between 121 million ounces of annual silver exports and the rest of the world. That means 60%-70% of the globally traded refined supply will require Beijing's permission to leave the country.
Wall Street spent Monday hyperventilating about margin hikes on silver traders. CNBC trotted out the usual suspects warning about "speculative excess." The X platform was full of people who couldn't spell backwardation six months ago suddenly explaining why silver is overvalued.
... Dispatch continues below ...
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Blue Lagoon Sells to Ocean Partners Nearly C$1 Million
of Gold and Silver from Dome Mountain's Initial Production
Company Announcement
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Blue Lagoon Resources Inc. (CSE: BLLG; OTCQB: BLAGF; FSE: 7BL) has made its first sale of gold and silver to Ocean Partners UK Ltd. from the Dome Mountain mineralized material that was delivered this month to the company's milling partner, Nicola Mining Inc., for processing.
The company expects to receive C$970,000 in connection with this delivery, representing its first sale related to production from Dome Mountain.
The payment represents an advance on the first shipment of approximately 1,000 tonnes of mineralized material delivered to Nicola, as processing has not yet occurred due to scheduled mill maintenance. ...
... For the remainder of the announcement:
https://bluelagoonresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Blue-Lagoon-Resources_Dec-30.pdf
They're all missing the story. China just weaponized silver. And they did it while Americans were busy arguing about whether bitcoin is real money.
If this feels familiar, it should. China doesn't invent new tricks. It just runs the old ones on new commodities.
In 2010, Beijing started "licensing" rare-earth exports. Not banning them, mind you. Just requiring paperwork. Approvals. Quotas that somehow never quite met demand.
The effect was surgical; as prices spiked up to 4,500%, Western manufacturers discovered they couldn't build smartphones or missiles without Chinese permission -- and a generation of supply-chain executives learned Mandarin the hard way.
The rare-earth squeeze wasn't dramatic. It was bureaucratic. Death by a thousand forms filed in triplicate.
Silver will see the same treatment starting Jan. 1. Chinese refiners will need government approval to export. The qualification thresholds are 80 tons of annual production capacity and $30 million in credit lines. That's not a regulatory standard. That's a velvet rope designed to keep most current exporters on the wrong side.
China just nationalized the silver trade without nationalizing a single mine. ...
... For the remainder of the commentary:
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