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Willem Middelkoop: Why $500 Silver is Possible as Comex Inventory Drops 30%

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0:00 | 28:25

Willem Middelkoop says the monetary reset is no longer a forecast. It is unfolding now.

Speaking with Kitco News at PDAC 2026, the Founder and CEO of Commodity Discovery Fund reiterated his aggressive silver outlook. “It was 2021 when I called for $100 silver,” he said. “Now I'm calling for $500 silver.” Middelkoop argues that historical benchmarks still matter, noting the gold-silver ratio “traditionally has been one in 10 for over 2000 years,” while physical supply continues to tighten. He added, “If you look at the silver production in Peru, it's down 40% over the last five years.”

Beyond price targets, Middelkoop believes the global financial order is shifting east. “The price discovery mechanism for gold and silver is moving from Chicago to Shanghai,” he said, adding, “I think this is Bretton Woods 3.0.” He warned that “the next crisis could be a sovereign debt crisis,” but maintains that despite volatility and geopolitical tension, “We are just starting.”

01:06 - Silver Squeeze Setup
02:47 - Comex Credibility Cracks
04:18 - Shanghai Takes Over
07:36 - Mexico Mining Risk
08:50 - Fed No Longer Matters
09:53 - Bretton Woods 3.0
11:32 - Sovereign Debt Reckoning
13:39 - Middle East Political Fallout
17:20 - What It Means for Miners
19:01 - M&A and Copper Deals
23:06 - Portfolio Positioning
25:44 - Black Swan and Stacking

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Disclaimer:  
The videos are not intended to provide trading advice, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. Kitco News, its anchors, producers, and reporters are not responsible in any way for the performance or actions of any sponsor, advertiser or affiliate of Kitco News. In no event will Kitco and its employees be held liable for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use of the content in this video.

SPEAKER_00

KitCo News, on-site coverage of PDAC, is presented by Gold Mining. U.S. Gold Mining, Uranium Energy Corp, and Uranium Royalty Corp.

SPEAKER_02

Hey everyone, welcome back to Kitco News. I'm Jeremy Sapper. Reporting, of course, from the floor of PDAC 2026 here in a little bit of sunny Toronto today. It's a little bit chilly as well. Now, where there is a lot of excitement on the ground, because of course the metal prices and mining stocks are in the headlines today, but forget the talk of soft landings and Fed pivots. Over the weekend, we saw the geopolitical landscape fundamentally shift with the military escalation in the Middle East and the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Now, the quote is the big reset, and that may no longer be a forecast. It is the reality hitting the terminal on everybody's floor today. Now, gold is still catching a nice bid around$5,300. Silver is down on the day, but it's searing down a delivery squeeze that some say is threatening to break the Comex, and the global energy market is bracing for a historic shark uh shock on that front. Now, joining me to break this down, of course, is a man who saw it coming about a decade ago. Willem Middlekope is a founder of Commodity Discovery Fund and the author of The Big Reset. Good to see you, Bill. Good to be back. Um I think we should first start, especially for our audience. Let's start on the silver squeeze. I mean, you know, the Comex registered silver stockpilers are sitting below 90 million ounces. I mean over 30% in just a few months. You saw the squeeze news just as much as I did. You saw the halts. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, uh it was 2021 when I called for$100 silver. That sounded outrageous back then. That was 5x. Yeah. Now I'm calling for$500 silver, it's another$x. That's possible. Oh yeah. Uh look at the gold-silver ratio. Uh traditionally has been one in ten for over 2,000 years. Gold is trading$5,000, 1 in 10, silver is$5,000,$500. And don't forget, um, silver wasn't used as the best conductor 1,000 years ago. It's needed now, you know, in the industry. So silver could uh surprise everybody. But there's still a lot of paper selling on the COMEX. You see that today, you know, uh but the open interest in on the COMEX is declining. So the price discovery mechanism for gold and silver are moving from Chicago to Shanghai.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, and already has, it feels like. Oh, yeah. And with this latest bid, including India, I mean they're gonna add another 10 billion into gold and silver from their fund. Um could could possibly change things. For the first time, they're ever going to be recording their own spot prices. They're not selling them on the Western. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And and the institutional Indian investors also said they wouldn't do, they would stop taking the Western prize, the LBMA silver prize as their benchmark. They now look at Shanghai, so that's that's where the price discovery uh mechanism is now.

SPEAKER_02

Now I guess you know, today, and I'm not sure when this is gonna air, but it is March 2nd for the folks at home, and that is, you know, the March delivery month started today. And uh, you know, uh we had a lot of talk about that squeeze, what it means. I mean, are we gonna see a force majeure, a cash center?

SPEAKER_01

No, no, no, because quite a bit of these uh contracts were rolled over to the next month. So you always have the doomsayers who say the ColeMex will collapse next month, but it's a process, it's not a binary event. But the COMEX is in uh is having a lot of uh problems. We saw them halt trading several times over the last, let's say, four months.

SPEAKER_02

But it was a technical glitch.

SPEAKER_01

Of course, always technical glitch. Uh, but nobody believes that anymore. So credibility of COMEX has been coming down quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Is that concerning when you're you know trying to keep the top spot?

SPEAKER_01

Well, when China is about to take over and you see the open interest coming down that much on the COMEX, and everybody is laughing about the COMEX and the technical glitches, it it it is concerning. But it tells you in this reset process, uh, it's the fourth turning. Another book by Neil Howe telling that every 80, 80, 90 years you have this big change. When this big change, and even everything what we've seen happening in the Middle East is part of that process. These old proxy wars, uh which are aligned with the the larger conflict between the US and China.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, speaking of which, I mean, you know, we were seeing that precision 10 to 12 dollar premium on the Shanghai versus London. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, the massive arbitrage uh that's essentially a giant vacuum, you know, sucking that physical metal out.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, you know, the question is But it it's hard to do the arbitrage because you need to take the physical out of Chicago, ship it to Shanghai, try to make a profit so that very few can do that.

SPEAKER_02

No, exactly, but but people are trying. Yeah. And it's still going out east.

SPEAKER_01

Well, the metal is shifting out of the western vaults into the eastern volts. I think if if we speak 12 months from now, we'll have a totally different situation.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, what does that situation look like 12 months from now?

SPEAKER_01

Now it's still debatable whether the price discovery is in Shanghai or in Chicago. In 12 months, it everybody will agree it moved to Shanghai. So I think we're in the last inning of this. Um, well, I I've been writing a lot about the manipulation, the management of the gold and silver markets by selling all this paper, gold, and silver. It is becoming so obvious now. I think in 12 months, uh it's not about the COMEX anymore.

SPEAKER_02

So, I mean, is the West you know subsidizing its own de-industrialization, I guess you could say, by keeping paper prices suppressed while China hoards the whole supply?

SPEAKER_01

Well, they're trying to win the fight day by day, but they're losing the war, and they know. So it's like an army in retreat. Sometimes they win a battle, but they're in retreat.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I mean, I mean you you've written about this before, you've spoken about this, you've you've called this a decade ago.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So are you feeling validated, Victoria? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Um look, if we look, I'm a fund manager, I started a fund in 2008, been a private investor for over 20 years. My children are 22 and 25 now. When they we when they were small, like three, four, they were playing with these silver bricks, the silver one kilobars we started stacking. That was around 2003. Uh now our fund, we started a fund in 2008, a few million friends and family money. We have 400 million Canadian now. So I I don't feel the need any longer to prove or to convince people. Yeah. It's all happening out there. It is nice, probably, to watch.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, uh, you know, the the argument obviously that counter is if China is the primary driver here. Doesn't that make the metals market entirely dependent on the CCP's export quotas?

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah, well, so much has happened in the last 12 to 18 months with the export stops. Don't forget the US adding silver to the critical metals list. I was first surprised because that puts a lot of ice on the story. But then we got the news a few weeks back that you had this huge agreement between Mexico and US on critical metals. And I was thinking, what critical metals is Mexico producing? I could only find one, that's silver. But because it was added to the critical mineral list, the press release was about critical minerals and not about silver. So it's another sign that they don't like to talk about silver too much.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, keep that price down while we bring it over. Uh I mean, we were talking about Mexico. I have to bring up the minor situation there. The jurisdictional risk, does that still play out? What are your thoughts about Mexico?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, fortunately, we weren't uh exposed to the Visa story. We always were a bit cautious on Mexico. We had a few positions there. Um but I'm I'm sorry to say this because I have friends who come from Mexico and we like the companies being active there, and it's it's very hard to make silver discoveries outside Mexico, but but in a way, Mexico is a failed state. Uh but I had I had a discussion with the CEO of a large producer, I won't mention names. I was at the BMO conference in Miami, and he told we we as producers have leverage over the government because they'll make sure, because we bring in so much taxes, they'll make sure the security around our mines is controlled. But if you're an explorer, you don't have the leverage uh over the government. So the explorers are on their own, and well, we are very defensive to invest there.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, I'm gonna keep the audience on a little bit of a hook for that because we've got to talk about the junior miners, the catch-up, MA, which is happening now. Before we do, just for our macro audience, I mean, you know, we got to talk about what the Fed looks like with Walsh there. I mean, you know, he's being tapped to lead, he's a known hawk, and obviously historically that's a death sentence for gold, but we're sitting here, you know,$5,300, a 10-year yield is surging. I mean, it, you know, does does the hawkish Fed even matter anymore?

SPEAKER_01

That was the line I wanted to use. You know, who worries about the Fed anymore? You know, that's that's that's from 10 years back. Um so even the Secretary of the Treasury in the US, Scott Basson, he actually says, well, and the Fed, you know, and and and this also is one other sign, one more sign that we are reaching the end of uh of an era, of an 80-year era, which started after the end of the Second World War. It's 82 years after Bretton Woods. So the next few years you will have all these changes.

SPEAKER_02

So is that mean a Bretton Woods 2.0?

SPEAKER_01

Actually, Bretton Woods 2.0 uh was 1971, some people say. So 1944 was the start of the Bretton Woods system. Uh we choose the dollar over gold. Then in 1971, of course, the Nixon had to close the gold window. US started to cheat on financial markets, started to defend the dollar by attacking gold and silver. And I think this is Bretton Woods 3.0, and uh we're still not sure yet what will take over, who will take over, but well, we're in this multipolar world now, and and there's these consistent rumors that China might start to back their currency or the BRICS currency by gold or silver. Or silver.

SPEAKER_02

I mean if the US comes and revalues that gold that's allegedly in Fort Knox, I mean what does that do?

SPEAKER_01

Wouldn't surprise me when they revalue it. They can two scenarios, they can revalue it to mark to market. So that's what everybody has done in the world. So the US can add a few trillion uh in their on their balance sheet, and that won't benefit um countries like China or Russia. But they could also take the initiative to uh revalue gold to a much higher level, but that's of course highly beneficial for countries like China and Russia, and I think that will only be done uh during a huge monetary financial crisis where the world needs to come together.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Um is the market clearly still pricing in kind of that sovereign debt crisis, that terminal sovereign debt crisis we talked about?

SPEAKER_01

It's great you mentioned that word. Because I I I like to point out that the next crisis could be a sovereign debt crisis. We're seeing the start of a uh crisis in on private credit, but the larger crisis out there, the risk for a larger crisis is the sovereign debt crisis. And still the US and other countries like Japan, who are highly indebted as well. They still act like they can always fund these deficits. There will be a point when that will change, and then all hell breaks loose.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And what does that world look like to you?

SPEAKER_01

Then financial markets will really uh be shocked.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. But does that mean, you know, because if Warsh successfully defends the dollar, forces a massive deleveraging, right? I mean, you know, everything, including gold miners, you know, is that the margin call?

SPEAKER_01

There are so many problems out there in the real economy, wars, proxy wars, everything. We get the shortages now in commodities. But still the markets are very stable. There's not a lot of volatility. So in a way, investors can um can treat the markets like that and there's no real risk out there. But once you get the sovereign debt crisis, they can't ignore it any longer. And I'm afraid that you'll have a collapse of of the loss of trust, and they have these panic reactions, and then it we can see a real market crash in a very serious way. And and and it feels like it's years out. It could be weeks out or months out, especially when you have a crisis like this one in the Middle East. Yeah, if this isn't over in a few days or a few weeks.

SPEAKER_02

Does that change with you know the midterms coming out? Everyone wants to stay in power here for the next year.

SPEAKER_01

Well, 80% of the Americans are against this war. So I think Trump made a huge gamble. This is the largest gamble of his life. And this will mean if he will be a winner or a loser in November. And and look, look, look what we hear from the Pentagon. Even Pete Hexett, Secretary of Defense, was making statements contradictionary to the president today. He says we're not going after regime change, and Trump said the last 24 hours we're here for regime change. So there's so much tension, even I think, within the government, within the Pentagon. And you might see people breaking ranks now. And and and and don't forget that people now understand that the US government is more or less run by Israeli interest. And this all this was always a taboo to talk about that. But if you look if you listen to the uh main guys, the podcast guys, the Rogans.

SPEAKER_02

So this hasn't surprised you what's happening right now.

SPEAKER_01

No, I've been writing about this for 10 years, you know, that the US wanted to have this Western satellite state in the Middle East to control the Middle East, to control the oil. But this was always like the conspiracy story, and I was needed to tone it down.

SPEAKER_02

But it seems like the other states are friendly to this as well, as bullets fly in their own nations.

SPEAKER_01

But the big story in the US is that the general public is fed up with the abstra Epstein elite, you know, Epstein horror, which Trump tries to bury as well. And and this story won't go away. And I think Netanyahu understands this is the last possibility to use the US, to use the US military for the goals he wants to accomplish.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, he did say in his quote last uh I think it was yesterday, that he's waited 40 years for this moment.

SPEAKER_01

Uh that wasn't smiling, and he knows he has till November, till the elections, to use Trump, to use the US. And he once has said in an interview that's 30, 40 years back, we'll use the US as long for as long as we need to, and then we can throw them away. So this is and and and I normally I didn't I don't want to talk about these topics because it's too sensitive and people laugh about you and they don't take you serious. But now in the mega camp, you know, the mega supporters, openly discussing this. Look what Tucker Carlson uh has said in the last uh few days. It's and I think this will the big this will be the la the largest the biggest story for the US for well the next elections. And look at the younger generations, they're all pro-Palestine. And on average, there was a poll. On average, the the American public is now supporting Palestinians more than Israelis. And that has never happened before.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Um I'm not sure how to we need to go back to Golden Zoom. I've never pivoted from Epstein to gold miners before, but but here's my attempt to do it, uh, because that is a very interesting world, and I mean if that does happen, what does that mean for the miners? I mean, you know, we're sitting here.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's the end of an era which started in Brotherhoods, is the fourth turning, so you have these major crises where everything starts to change and to shift, where everything you thought you were certain about in the last few decades is turning upside down, where gold and silver, which are the anti-dollar, they become the main currencies. So it's very positive for gold and silver, and that's why I studied this for such a long time, because you know I'm I'm an opportunistic uh investor. So I want to understand where the world is heading so I can make some money for me and my fund and our investors.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean you called it right. I mean the GDXJ is is more than triple.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. We started a fund 70 years ago. It was the worst decision of my life to start a commodity fund, you know, in 2008. It was the top of the last cycle. Uh even my wife were once asked, You sure you know what you do? Yeah, yeah. And and now, you know, we're like I said, we're 400 million funds. Uh I don't want to be a billionaire, but this fund will grow to 1 billion dollars, and and um we're just starting.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's great to hear. I mean, you know, to your point, uh, we're seeing majors like you know, Newmont, Barrick in a desperate flight to replace reserves. So let's talk about MA here. I mean, you know, we had that major, uh, who was it today? It was Arizona and the copper deal. Arizona Sonero. Sonero. I mean, you know, one of our positions. 30% upside on that acquisition. I mean, um, is this MA starting to just happen?

SPEAKER_01

Well, this is a copper project in Arizona. I've I I traveled to Site a few years back to check it out. We weren't sure yet if this would be a winner. But now, with all the securities of supplies and the bifurcation of the world in commodities, uh the US made sure that they want to develop their own minds. Copper is a critical metal as well, was also added to the list. So we were quite sure that this was a good story. We stick with the story. Um, it's our 92nd buyout takeover in our portfolio since inception. So um we're glad with this one. We have some uh free money to spend on on new discoveries, but it shows the US is um serious about developing its own mining industry again.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and seems like quickly. I mean the tailwinds are just they're you know six months instead of or six weeks instead of six years.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know, the numbers between discovery and opening of the mine is on average 17 years, but in the US it was 27 years. But so a lot of the red tape uh has been cut, will be cut, and uh that's the reason why the US is looking to Canada, to Greenland, uh Venezuela. They want the commodities, they need the commodities.

SPEAKER_02

And I mean, you know, if we're talking about your discovery fund at least, I mean, are you seeing this as a as a as a you know a cycle peak for the juniors?

SPEAKER_01

Or no, we're just starting. I I yeah, I was on a panel yesterday, and you know, even Rig Rule is is advising investors to to take money off the table, and which is a good advice, of course, because if you're up 100-200%. But all the profit we have taken on this rally uh was actually a mistake. Keep keep your money in this market. I think I think we're just starting. Um I showed a graph of the flow of funds yesterday. The amount of money going into the gold market, the physical gold market, is like 200 billion now in a year. And that's that's ten times what it was in 2016 or 2020 when we had recoveries as well. But they only took four or five months. So it it is different this time. It's dangerous to say that, but it is different. So we're witnessing this this this huge shift. Where the US is losing control over these markets. And don't forget, without geopolitics, without the monetary and debasement stuff, it's just supply and demand. You know, mines can't. If you look at the silver production in Peru, it's down 40% over the last five years. Uh copper production in Chile is down quite a bit. That's that's one of the major copper producers. Uh Robert Friedland did a great talk in Miami during the BIMO conference. That it doesn't add up. We don't find enough metals for the next few eras. So the the price will go up.

SPEAKER_02

Now do you think that the majors have waited too long to spend money?

SPEAKER_01

Governments have been waiting too long. A few years back, I had talks with the government of the Yukon in Canada. And I told them governments need to come together to build a fund to uh invest in exploration. Well, that was a very strange idea at that time. But now everybody, I I'll have a meeting with the Dutch State Department here later today in Toronto. We never heard from them in the first 50 years we were in business. They now call us every month because everybody has woken up that that this is serious, and there's a huge crisis out there.

SPEAKER_02

So, I mean, in this world, I mean you've had some good run-ups on the gold side, some good run-ups on the silver side. That may not be over. Are you looking at other commodities? Copper, uranium? What's the hot one right now for you?

SPEAKER_01

Well, you mentioned um exactly the the four metals we are exposed to. So gold is like 40% of our exposure, so gold-related equities. Silver is around 15%. Then you have uranium, uh, it's about 8%, and of course copper, which is over 20%, and then we have some oil and gas, but these are the main metals. We chose, we pivoted away from the smaller critical metals, rare earth metals. These are very small markets. Often you have only one or two producers, so there are very few potential buyers out there for a project. So we concentrate on on these big four. Uh and and as you might know, we concentrate on the top 50 discoveries worldwide, the most significant ones.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And uh, you know, when you see a deal like today on the copper side, I mean, and you see Friedland getting up in Miami to talk, maybe there's more fire to that fuel.

SPEAKER_01

Well, there's so much money out there, and the generalist investors are coming into the market. I asked some companies uh during the BMO conference what percentage of their one one-on-one chats were with generalist investors. It was around 10, 20. Uh, they often brought their own advisors because they don't understand the world of commodities themselves, so uh they have a steep learning curve. But it shows uh there's lots of new money coming in. I think we're only at the start of that move, and that means that this bull market will take a lot longer. And because there's so much money available, if an explorer needs to do a financing now, uh in the old days they were able to do to take three to five million, now they take thirty to fifty million. That's a big change. Yeah, are you worried about dilution? If if if if a great successful explorer with a great management team and a great project can take 30, 40, 50 million, we always endorse that because it can really speed them in their process. But if the uh not so great companies take in a lot of money, that that that that won't add any serious value. But in good companies and good projects, I I'm I'm not worried about uh this dilution. Yeah, wonderful.

SPEAKER_02

Um all right, well listen, I mean, yeah, we'll let you go, but before we do that, I mean looking around this audience uh here around the floor. I mean we got thousands of investors in minings here. Uh what's the one black swan you think that people are ignoring in this room?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think it's still the sovereign debt prices, which actually will be um which will be frightening and and uh which can really send the world economy into chaos.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But but will be very good for gold and silver because that's that's when we really need to look at gold as the last man standing, and we will need to re-value gold to much higher levels to stabilize the system. But I'm a bit afraid that because of the huge conflict between the US and China, they won't agree on how to fix the system. Well, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, we were in this globalized world where we were much more all aligned to sit around the table and do what's best for the world. Well, that's that's the that's that's the only thing which keeps me up at night.

SPEAKER_02

Interesting. Uh final one. I mean, are you still stacking? You brought up your kids, are they still stacking? What's the story there? You still like the physical side?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, when when silver was pushed down for$120 to$70. I couldn't um yeah, I couldn't stop myself to uh buy some more.

SPEAKER_02

All right, you bought the depth. Villa Middle Cup joining us today on the floor. Uh, appreciate your time as always. I know you don't do this as often, so come back and see us maybe uh post-summer, hey, when when when the shit hits the fan, as you say.

SPEAKER_01

And I enjoy Mallorca.

SPEAKER_02

I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. All right, I'm Jeremy Safford here at PDAC 2026 with Kitco News. We've got some more great guests joining us all week long, so be sure to hit subscribe. Thank you for watching. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00

KitCo News, on-site coverage of PDAC, is presented by Gold Mining. U.S. Gold Mining, Uranium Energy Corp, and Uranium Royalty Corp.