Silver Rises Over 120% YTD 
Published: 05-27-2026, 11:15 am
Key Takeaways
- The SILVER Act — the System Integrity through Licensed Vault Expansion and Resilience Act — is bipartisan federal legislation introduced in the US Senate on May 21, 2026 by Senators Jim Risch (R-ID) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), following the House companion bill H.R. 8007 introduced in March 2026. [Congress.gov]
- Under exchange practices dating to the 1970s, all approved precious metals storage facilities for US futures delivery are concentrated in the Greater New York City area. The SILVER Act would require at least two approved depositories in each of the four continental US time zones. [H.R. 8007 bill text / Congress.gov]
- For individual investors, the bill’s passage could mean lower storage costs, broader vault access, and a more resilient physical metals market — with the CFTC Chairman already publicly pledging support. [CFTC House Agriculture Committee hearing, April 16, 2026]
Everything about the gold and silver market looks modern. Real-time spot prices. Electronic trading. Fractional ownership. AI-driven allocation tools.
And then there are the vaults.
For over five decades, the physical metal underpinning the US precious metals futures market has been stored in one geographic corridor: Greater New York City. That concentration of critical financial infrastructure has gone unfixed — and largely unnoticed — since the 1970s. The SILVER Act is Washington’s attempt to finally change it.
Introduced with bipartisan Senate support on May 21, 2026, this SILVER Act precious metals reform matters for every investor who holds physical gold or silver — or who is considering it. Here is what you need to know.
What Is the SILVER Act?
The SILVER Act — formally the System Integrity through Licensed Vault Expansion and Resilience Act — is federal legislation that would amend the Commodity Exchange Act. Specifically, it would expand the geographic eligibility of approved precious metals depositories across the United States. [Congress.gov, H.R. 8007]
Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) introduced the Senate version on May 21, 2026. [Senator Risch press release, May 21, 2026] Reps. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho) and Mark Harris (R-North Carolina) had already introduced the House companion bill, H.R. 8007, on March 19, 2026. [Congress.gov]
Both bills address the same structural problem. Under exchange practices that have persisted for over 50 years, the only storage facilities approved for delivery against regulated gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures contracts are in the New York City area. Consequently, qualified vaults everywhere else in the country cannot participate — regardless of their security, size, or proximity to mining regions.
The bill’s mechanism is straightforward. It would direct the CFTC to require at least two approved depositories in each of the four continental US time zones — Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. [Senator Risch / Cortez Masto press releases, May 21, 2026] As a result, states like Idaho, Nevada, and Texas — all significant precious metals states — would finally be eligible.
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Why Does Vault Geography Matter to Investors?
Most precious metals investors never think about where their metal is stored relative to futures markets. That’s exactly the problem.
When futures contracts settle, the metal delivered must come from an exchange-approved depository. Under current rules, however, all of those depositories are clustered around New York City. That geographic lock creates three direct consequences for investors and market participants.
First, it creates single-region concentration risk. All critical delivery infrastructure sits in one corridor. A cyberattack, natural disaster, or infrastructure disruption affecting the New York metro area could impair metals settlement across the entire regulated US futures market.
Rep. Mark Harris made this explicit at the April 2026 House Agriculture Committee hearing: “The only approved metals depositories used for deliveries on gold and silver futures contracts are heavily concentrated in the single geographic region around New York City. This level of geographic concentration is troubling from a point of national security, market efficiency, and operational resiliency.” [CFTC House Agriculture Committee hearing, April 16, 2026]
Second, it suppresses competition and raises storage costs. When only a handful of vaults qualify for exchange approval, those vaults charge maximum allowable fees — because they can. There is no competitive pressure from qualified facilities elsewhere.
According to the CFTC hearing, storage fees at existing approved facilities run at maximum allowable rates, while comparable facilities in other regions could offer the same services at significantly lower cost. [CFTC House Agriculture Committee hearing, April 16, 2026] That fee gap is a cost every physical metals investor ultimately absorbs.
Third, it disadvantages investors and producers outside the Northeast. The Western United States is where the vast majority of US gold and silver mining and refining occurs. Yet the infrastructure connecting that production to the regulated futures market funnels everything through New York. That adds transportation cost, time, and logistical friction at every step.
In other words, the region that produces the metal cannot efficiently deliver it.
Who Is Behind the SILVER Act — and Who Supports It?
The bill arrived with both bipartisan Senate sponsorship and a broad industry coalition behind it.
Jim Risch is a conservative Idaho Republican. Catherine Cortez Masto is a Nevada Democrat. That pairing is deliberate — both Idaho and Nevada are significant precious metals states, with major silver mining and gold production respectively. Both senators cited the direct disadvantage their states face under the current New York-centric system. [Senator Risch press release, May 21, 2026]
Moreover, the bill carries support from across the precious metals supply chain. Supporters include the Silver Institute, Columbia Bank, A-Mark Precious Metals, Zions Bancorp/Nevada State Bank, Frontier Mint, Texas Precious Metals Depository, First Majestic Silver Corp, Kilo Capital, and Highland Mint. [Mining.com, May 21, 2026]
Crucially, the CFTC has also signaled active support. At the April 2026 House Agriculture Committee hearing, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig endorsed the bill’s goals and pledged to work with Congress and industry to address the concentration risk. [CFTC House Agriculture Committee hearing, April 16, 2026] Early regulatory alignment at this level significantly improves a bill’s legislative prospects.
Indeed, the timeline tells the story clearly. Fulcher and Harris introduced H.R. 8007 in March. The CFTC Chairman endorsed the effort in April. Then Risch and Cortez Masto introduced the Senate companion bill in May. That is not the pace of an idea being discussed — it is the pace of a reform with real momentum.
What Would Change If the SILVER Act Passes?
Specifically, three concrete changes would follow for the physical metals market.
More depositories, more regions, more competition. The two-per-time-zone requirement means qualified vaults in Nevada, Idaho, Texas, and other Western states could enter the exchange-approved network for the first time. As a result, more competition would create downward pressure on storage fees — a structural cost improvement for every participant in the supply chain, including retail investors holding allocated metal through an IRA or vault storage program.
Reduced systemic vulnerability. A futures market whose entire delivery infrastructure depends on one geographic corridor is a single point of failure. By distributing approved depositories across four time zones, however, the metal backing regulated contracts would spread across the country — significantly more resilient to regional disruption.
Closer alignment between where metal is produced and where it can be legally delivered. The Western US mines and refines the metal. New York holds the only approved vaults. The SILVER Act would close that geographic mismatch — reducing the transportation cost, time, and logistical friction that currently sits between production and delivery.
Is the 1970s Vault System Still Defensible?
The geographic concentration of precious metals delivery infrastructure is not a regulatory choice. Rather, it is a historical artifact — a product of how the market was built when electronic trading did not exist and vaults needed to be near exchange trading floors.
The trading floors are gone. The concentration, however, stayed.
For decades, that arrangement persisted because no one with sufficient standing pushed back. That changed in the last 18 months. Significant supply and price dislocations in global precious metals markets — disruptions that exposed the fragility of a New York-centric delivery system — gave reform advocates the evidence they needed. [CFTC House Agriculture Committee hearing, April 16, 2026]
Furthermore, the convergence of legislative, regulatory, and industry momentum within a single 60-day window — H.R. 8007 in March, the CFTC Chairman’s endorsement in April, the bipartisan Senate bill in May — is not coincidental. It reflects a straightforward fix whose time has come.
In short, Washington is acknowledging that precious metals have outgrown their 1970s plumbing.
What Does the SILVER Act Signal for Sound Money?
The SILVER Act is an infrastructure bill. Nevertheless, the signal it carries is worth reading clearly.
The precious metals market is not a niche. Gold trades at approximately $4,448 per ounce as of May 27, 2026. Silver trades at approximately $74.73 per ounce. Moreover, central banks have purchased more than 1,000 tonnes of gold annually for three consecutive years. [World Gold Council Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey 2024]
The physical metals market has grown significantly in scale and geographic scope since its delivery infrastructure was designed. The SILVER Act acknowledges that reality. A bipartisan coalition of senators, the federal commodity futures regulator, and a broad industry coalition are now treating precious metals delivery infrastructure as a matter of national security and market integrity. That is not the behavior of a market that anyone views as a relic.
For the long-term physical metals investor, the expansion of approved storage facilities represents a structural improvement. Lower costs, more competition, and a more resilient delivery system benefit every holder. This holds whether you hold metal outright, through an IRA, or through a vault storage program.
That case has nothing to do with predicting prices. Instead, it is about the health of the market you are participating in. Our guide to precious metals IRA storage options covers how storage works today under current rules.
What Should Precious Metals Investors Watch?
Track the Senate committee process. The bill has bipartisan co-sponsorship and CFTC support — both strong early conditions. The critical next step is Senate committee referral and markup. Commodity futures legislation typically falls under the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. Advancement out of committee is the clearest signal the bill is on a real legislative path.
Watch the CFTC’s parallel track. CFTC Chairman Selig committed to examining the concentration risk question independently of legislative timing. [CFTC House Agriculture Committee hearing, April 16, 2026] Accordingly, regulatory action could arrive before the bill is enacted — or complement it after. Both tracks are worth monitoring. For context on how the current framework operates, explore how physical silver and gold are stored and delivered under today’s rules.
Understand how this changes your storage options — eventually. Today, investors holding metal through exchange-linked programs are limited to the New York-area vault network. However, if the bill passes, qualified facilities elsewhere become eligible — potentially including vaults operating at lower fee structures or located closer to Western US buyers and producers. That is a practical expansion of your options.
Keep the bigger picture. The SILVER Act does not change gold’s monetary properties or silver’s industrial demand profile. What it changes, instead, is the market’s capacity to deliver on those fundamentals — efficiently, resiliently, and without a single geographic chokepoint. Here’s what the current central bank gold buying trend tells us about where we are in the monetary cycle.
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People Also Ask
What is the SILVER Act?
The SILVER Act — the System Integrity through Licensed Vault Expansion and Resilience Act — is bipartisan federal legislation introduced in the US Senate on May 21, 2026 by Senators Jim Risch (R-ID) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV). [Senator Risch press release, May 21, 2026] It amends the Commodity Exchange Act to require at least two exchange-approved precious metals storage facilities in each of the four continental US time zones. This breaks up a 50-year concentration of delivery infrastructure in the Greater New York City area.
Why are precious metals delivery vaults concentrated in New York?
The concentration dates to the 1970s, when exchange-approved depositories needed physical proximity to trading floors in New York City. [H.R. 8007 / Congress.gov] Electronic trading ended the operational need for geographic concentration — but the exchange approval rules never changed. As a result, qualified facilities in the Western United States remain ineligible, despite operating in the region where most US gold and silver is mined and refined.
What is H.R. 8007?
H.R. 8007 is the House companion to the Senate SILVER Act. Reps. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho) and Mark Harris (R-North Carolina) introduced it on March 19, 2026, directing the CFTC to require geographic diversification of exchange-approved precious metals depositories. [Congress.gov] Furthermore, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig expressed support for the bill’s goals at an April 2026 House Agriculture Committee hearing. [CFTC hearing, April 16, 2026]
How would the SILVER Act affect storage costs for precious metals investors?
Supporters argue that opening depository eligibility to qualified facilities outside New York will increase competition and push storage fees lower. Currently, exchange-approved depositories charge maximum allowable rates because they face no competitive pressure from non-New York facilities. [CFTC House Agriculture Committee hearing, April 16, 2026] Consequently, more approved facilities means lower costs across the supply chain.
Does the SILVER Act change gold or silver prices?
Not directly. The SILVER Act is a market infrastructure reform — it changes which facilities can hold metal for futures delivery, not the supply-and-demand dynamics that drive price. However, its structural effects — reduced systemic risk, increased market efficiency, and lower friction costs in physical delivery — support long-term market health and participation.
The Plumbing Is Catching Up to the Metal
The case for owning physical gold and silver doesn’t require a perfect market. The monetary fundamentals — debasement, fiscal expansion, central bank demand, industrial supply deficits — operate regardless of whether approved vaults sit in New York or Nevada.
What the SILVER Act offers is something different: market infrastructure that finally reflects the scale and geographic reality of the physical metals market. Fifty years is long enough to wait.
As a result, lower costs, more competition, and a delivery system that does not depend on one corridor in one city are all now within reach. Moreover, the bipartisan, regulator-endorsed momentum behind this bill signals clearly that the institutions responsible for market integrity treat gold and silver as serious assets deserving serious infrastructure.
Ultimately, that is worth noticing.
If you want to understand what owning physical gold and silver actually looks like — and how to build that position with clarity — create a free account at GoldSilver and see what long-term ownership looks like in practice.
SOURCES
1. Senator Jim Risch — Risch, Cortez Masto Introduce Bill to Boost Access to Precious Metal Depositories
2. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto — Cortez Masto, Risch Introduce Bill to Boost Access to Precious Metal Depositories
3. Congress.gov — H.R. 8007 SILVER Act, 119th Congress: Bill Text
4. Rep. Russ Fulcher — Fulcher Introduces Bill to Strengthen Geographic Diversity of Metal Depositories
5. House Agriculture Committee — Hearing: Testimony of CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig, April 16, 2026
6. Mining.com — Lawmakers Introduce SILVER Act to Increase Precious Metals Storage Sites in US
7. World Gold Council — 2024 Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey
8. GoldSilver — Live spot price data via nFusion Solutions feed, May 27, 2026
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice. Please consult a qualified financial adviser before making any investment decisions.
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