2026-01-08 08:22:14

⚠️ Beware of the tricks in precious metals investing

Retail precious metals dealers have been shouting "inventory shortage" every day lately, as if gold and silver will run out tomorrow. Retail investors are getting a bit panicked by this trend and are rushing in to buy the dip. But there's a lot more beneath the surface.

**The key issue is only one thing: the buy-sell spread.**

When merchants loudly claim they're out of stock, they immediately raise the selling price (premium). It looks like there's a shortage, but in reality, they're just milking retail investors. If there truly was a shortage, they would desperately buy back at high prices to replenish inventory, right? But what do we see? The buyback prices are ridiculously low, sometimes even lower than the spot price. This exposes it — the so-called shortage is not a liquidity crisis but a scam targeting beginners.

**The data is right here:**
The silver spread is outrageously large; you need the silver price to rise by $9 to $14 to break even. Even more extreme, the gold eagle coin has a buy-sell spread of up to $500 per ounce. In some places, the buyback price for silver is even $9 below the spot price.

**The real cost isn't just storage fees.** These huge spreads are the black hole where your assets are truly shrinking. Before participating in physical precious metals investment, you need to do some serious math.

$BTC-related markets continue to evolve; invest with caution.

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BearMarketMonk

· 01-11 04:30

Raising prices due to low stock—I've seen this trick too many times in the crypto world; it's the same old story with a different wrapper.

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AirdropAutomaton

· 01-10 21:53

This tactic is just betting that retail investors won't do the math, causing panic and FOMO to rush in and suffer heavy losses.

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GateUser-9f682d4c

· 01-10 02:06

Bro, you're not wrong. I've been through this before. Now I just skip over those "stock running out" ads. With such a big price difference, it's better to go all in on the crypto market.

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OnchainHolmes

· 01-09 12:26

It's another classic scam to harvest retail investors. When inventory runs low, they raise prices. How anti-human is this logic?

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MeaninglessApe

· 01-08 08:52

It's the same story again, the buyback price is ridiculously low, and you're telling me there's a shortage? Are you really treating retail investors like fools?

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CodeAuditQueen

· 01-08 08:50

It's like a reentrancy vulnerability in smart contracts, where merchants create a false impression of "out of stock" to inflate prices... In simple terms, the attack vector has changed, and retail investors are always the ones getting exploited.

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GasWaster

· 01-08 08:48

lol this is literally the same rug as watching gas fees spike during network congestion... except here you're bleeding spread costs instead of gwei. brutal.

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FloorPriceNightmare