Because gold and silver are settled in dollars and there is no transparency on actual supply (unlike Bitcoin where blockchain makes everything transparent) the banks - especially JP Morgan can and have been playing the derivative futures game forever. The only way this game can fall apart is when the bullion banks actually run out of physcial supply and are unable to deliver physical to buyers. Max Keiser tried a campaign a few years ago where he wanted to bust JP Morgan by having everyone buy 1 piece of physical silver. Kyle Bass (big hedge fund guy) is the fudiciary for the University of Texas he tells a story how he went to the Comex Warehouse to see their gold supplies and he was shocked at how low they were, when he asked the manager what would happen if everyone who was holding paper wanted to change it in for the physical? The guy told him first, that never happens and second if it did happen the price of gold would have to go much much higher. Guess what? Kyle that day took physcial rights to his gold and holds them in a seperate vault in the Comex (which he pays for). Right now I think it is 300 paper contracts on every one piece of gold - so when they open the door on the vault one guy gets the real gold and the other 299 get fiat dollars. I own physcial gold and silver and I do not care that it does not make me any money -- I see it as insurance to the mad mad world we are living in.