With gold and silver prices rising faster in 2025 than any year since 1979, first-time buying on BullionVault continues to run at levels seen only during financial and economic crises, new data from the low-cost, world-leading marketplace shows today.
“Gold and silver have reacted to the first year of Donald Trump’s return to the White House like it’s the banking crash or Covid pandemic,” says BullionVault director of research Adrian Ash.
“Gold priced in British Pounds has now set a new month-average record for 16 months in a row, an unprecedented stretch of new all-time highs more than twice as long as the seven months seen during the oil-and-inflation crisis of 1973.”
“While there’s every chance that the current fever in gold and silver prices will sweat itself out, it’s hard to see any cure for the long-term bull market in these hard money assets, not in the way that capping QE hit gold and silver in 2013 or the vaccine did five years ago.
“Given next year’s geopolitical outlook, plus Trump’s capture of the Federal Reserve, the underlying uptrend in bullion prices looks set to continue.”
Over the past 12 months, the surge in new demand at BullionVault − now used by 120,000 people worldwide and caring today for a record £6.1 billion of gold, silver, platinum and palladium − has brought the West London fintech more first-time bullion buyers than any calendar year outside of 2020 or 2011, leaping by 121.7% from 2024.
“The big difference between 2025 and this century’s previous surges in new precious metals demand is that Western investors didn’t own anywhere near as much bullion going into the financial crisis or Covid pandemic,” says Ash.
“So, this year’s rush has been offset by ongoing profit-taking among existing investors as prices jump ever higher.”
Including all existing customers, the number of investors buying gold on BullionVault across November fell 38.8% from October’s near-record count, which was second only to March 2020.
The number of gold sellers fell by the same proportion, down 39.3% from October’s all-time record. Together, that put the Gold Investor Index − a unique measure of sentiment built solely from actual activity in physical bullion − lower by 3.2 points from October’s 56-month high at a 3-month low of 54.7.
Any reading above 50.0 signals more buyers than sellers. The Gold Investor Index hit a record high of 71.7 at the peak of the global financial crisis in September 2011, and it hit a decade high of 65.9 as the Covid pandemic and lockdowns went global in March 2020.
March 2024 then saw the Gold Investor Index set an all-time low of 47.5, signalling more sellers than buyers for only the 3rd time in the series’ history as a jump in gold prices spurred record-heavy profit-taking without any strong growth in new buyers.
“While long-term investors continue trimming their holdings to rebalance their portfolios, new buyers are already seeing strong gains this year,” says Ash.
“Indeed, 2025’s first-time gold investors were more likely to sell all or some of their holdings in November than any other vintage of BullionVault users.”
Buying gold anytime between January and November would now, on average, show a GBP gain of 24.3% net of all costs on BullionVault.
At the start of November, BullionVault users who had bought gold for the first time in 2025 accounted for 1-in-8 (12.4%) of all gold owners. Yet they represented more than 1/5th (21.2%) of last month’s net sellers, making the strongest ratio of sellers-to-owners among any year’s cohort more than one-third above (36.5%) the next strongest group, 2024.
In tonnage terms last month, gold’s new record prices saw selling marginally outweigh buying. That cut BullionVault users’ total holdings − all secured and insured in specialist, third-party custody in each client’s choice of London, New York, Singapore, Toronto or (most popular) Zurich − by 0.1 tonnes (92kg, -0.2%) to the lowest in six months at 43.9 tonnes.
In value terms however, those holdings rose 3.4% across the month in GBP to the sixth new month-end record in a row at £4.4bn.
The number of people buying silver meanwhile halved last month from October’s 56-month record, dropping by 46.4%. But the number of sellers also fell, down 23.8% from October’s all-time record even as the more industrially useful precious metal also shot to yet more new record prices.
Together, that cut 6.6 points off the Silver Investor Index, the steepest drop since BullionVault’s sentiment index retreated from the Covid Crash spike of early 2020, to give a reading of 52.1, the lowest since August.
The Silver Investor Index set a series high 75.1 in March 2020 as prices sank by nearly 1/5th amid the first-wave pandemic. It then hit a series low 45.0 in March 2024 as prices rose sharply, spurring record-heavy profit-taking without any strong growth in new buyers.
Priced in Dollars, silver this November averaged more than $50 per Troy ounce, its third new month-average record in a row. That’s the longest stretch since silver’s 10-month run in 1979.
In tonnage terms, silver’s new record prices saw selling outweigh buying for the third month running on BullionVault, trimming users’ total holdings by half-a-tonne (555kg, less than 0.1%) to the lowest in four months at 1,153 tonnes.
By value however, those holdings rose 9.4% across the month in GBP to the sixth new all-time record in a row at £1.5bn
“Unlike the precious metal surges of 2011 or 2020, there’s been no extreme stress in wider financial markets this year. On the contrary, global stock markets have also risen to new all-time highs.
“With fears growing of a 2026 crash in the AI bubble, it would be truly different this time if the appeal of rare, physical bullion doesn’t rise further should the equity boom turn into bust.”
