Actual newly mined silver is around 1 Billion Troy Oz a Year, Paper contracts are over 400 B Troy Oz.
So an essentially 30 B business becomes well over a 1 T business on paper. Look for the paper trading to go away and silver to find a more stable value.
Where are you looking? Kitco is considered the most accurate site and they have silver at 30.97 at this moment... they are showing a of 31.10 so far.
One video I watched explained that there are several types of paper contracts and they each have different spot prices. The online dealers like to use the spot prices that are advantageous to them. The Video Channels that are sponsored by online bullion dealers will use that dealers spot price.
Kitco is used as spot price for most non-sponsored channels. Also Many LCS. All three that I have been to in Nashville.
Kitco is an online dealer with High Prices for selling, but they also seem to pay the most when buying. However they don't buy any and all bullion, and you have to deposit 15% - 20% in an account with them BEFORE selling to them. Weird, but...
Commodity futures market.
https://www.investing.com/commodities/real-time-futures
Dealers use the bid price,witch is lower.
Yes, many use the bid price to buy and the ask price to sell... And most of them have different spot bid and ask prices than the other dealers. Right now SD Bullion has gold spot at 2639.98, JM 2641.12, APMEX 2645.30, KItco. 2629.00
I have heard the Hong Kong precious metals has no paper trading for invisible metal. Awhile back you could sell at a higher price there than in the USA, but I'm not sure about now.
Some also delay the price.
Yes, spot price is manipulated, but its what we have for now. I'm hoping that whatever the plan is will remove most of the manipulation if not all. Gold is popular and pretty, but silver is a lot more useful. So I'm hoping my modest stack will at least retain buying power as it has done most of history.