Yesterday's plunge in silver looked like a meme-like rug pool, with a single-day drop of 36%, breaking the record of the past 40 years.
The biggest drop in history was "Silver Thursday," but that was 46 years ago (March 27, 1980). At that time, affected by the failed manipulation by the Hunt brothers, the price of silver plummeted from nearly $50/oz to $10.80/oz in just a few days.
The recent surge and subsequent plunge of silver following gold is reminiscent of the past when ETH followed BTC's rise and fall; the underlying strategy of speculative trading is almost identical.
Initially, the pressure of US government debt, frequent government shutdowns, and Trump's global tariff wars caused investors to waver in their confidence in the US dollar, leading to a massive influx of funds into gold. (BTC trading)
However, after gold stabilized above $5,000, investors believed that silver was severely undervalued, and a large amount of funds flowed from gold to silver for catch-up trading (funds flowed out of BTC to speculate on ETH).
Because the silver market is smaller than the gold market, when a large number of hedge funds and retail investors flood in, it is easy to create a short squeeze, leading to an irrational vertical price increase (speculating on the smaller market capitalization to gain a larger price increase).
Moreover, after the surge in silver prices, funds flowed out to speculate on copper, platinum, and other smaller-cap coins (Altcoin).
Market concerns that the new Federal Reserve chairman would adopt aggressive quantitative tightening and interest rate hikes caused the dollar to surge and precious metals to plummet. Silver, due to its smaller market capitalization, amplified the decline in gold prices (a double-edged sword).
Although the targets are different, the behavioral patterns of people speculating are the same; one principle applies to all.