Silver keeps climbing.
The price of the precious metal has surged in recent weeks, hitting an all-time high of $64.66 per ounce on Dec. 12, 2025. Silver has now logged nearly 113% gains in 2025, as of this writing.
It's a prime opportunity for investors to capture the momentum, and one of the best ways to invest in silver right now is by owning physical silver without actually owning it.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why is the price of silver going up?
Silver is shattering records amid booming demand and supply constraints. China's stockpiles have fallen to 10-year lows, pushing silver price to all-time highs. Industrial demand for silver has never been this strong. Silver is used extensively in electric vehicles, electronics, solar panels, and engine bearings for aircraft.
Silver is also considered a safe-haven asset that investors buy to hedge their portfolios against inflation and geopolitical uncertainties. With the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates further last week, silver received another boost.
To top it all, President Donald Trump added silver to the list of critical minerals in November, designating it as an essential mineral to the U.S. economy and national security. The government wants to build secure supply chains for these minerals to cut its reliance on imports.
The Silver Institute's latest report projects demand for silver to rise further over the next five years, driven by industrial needs and emerging applications like artificial intelligence data centers.
Investors can either purchase physical silver, silver stocks, or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to ride the silver wave. One ETF, in particular, offers investors an incredibly easy and reasonable way to gain exposure to the price of silver -- the iShares Silver Trust (SLV +3.58%).
The king of silver ETFs
An ETF allows investors to buy a basket of stocks, bonds, or other assets, such as commodities, eliminating the need for investors to analyze and select individual stocks and bonds or hold physical commodities. There are several ETFs focused on silver, the largest of them being the iShares Silver Trust ETF.
The iShares Silver Trust holds silver bullion in the form of physical bars stored in bank vaults. As of Dec. 12, the iShares Silver Trust held over 517 million ounces of silver, making it the largest silver ETF with nearly $33 billion of assets under management.
NYSEMKT: SLV
Key Data Points
Since the ETF tracks the price of silver, investors who buy its shares can gain exposure to the day-to-day fluctuations in silver without actually owning physical silver. As silver rocketed higher in 2025, so did shares of the iShares Silver Trust.
Owning ETFs comes at a cost, but the iShares Silver Trust's low expense ratio of 0.5% makes it an incredibly low-cost ETF to own.
So to capture the upside in silver, all you have to do is buy some shares in the iShares Silver Trust and sit back and watch them rise in value alongside the price of silver.
