It was once twice as expensive as gold! It created an unprecedented 99.99% decline in human financial history!

Gold, history’s all-time high price record, was locked in at 5,608.35 USD per ounce (international spot gold) in January 2026. On March 23, gold’s single-day drop at one point exceeded 8%, with the low probing to 4,098.25 USD per ounce, nearly wiping out all gains in 2026. In less than three months, gold went from 5,600 to 4,100, a drop of more than 26%.

Silver, history’s all-time high price record, was locked in at 121.07 USD per ounce (London spot silver) on January 29, 2026. On February 5, the spot silver market was hit by an unprecedented storm. At the close, silver price plunged 20.06%, ending at 70.902 USD per ounce. In just a few trading days, silver slid by more than 40%.

If there is any metal whose rate of decline surpassed silver’s 40% drop record set in 2026, it must be aluminum. Because what it went through was not really a “price drop,” but the destruction of 99.99% of its value. A metal that was once twice as expensive as gold fell, within just a few decades, by six orders of magnitude, straight from the king’s dining table into the roadside trash can. And this time it fell, it can never be repaired.

So what kind of legend is this? Let’s walk into aluminum’s past and present.

Untouchable abundance

In the periodic table, aluminum may be the most “wronged” metal in the world.

From a geology perspective, Earth is actually quite generous to humanity. The most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust is aluminum, with a richness of as high as 8.1%, ranking third, behind only oxygen and silicon. It has nearly twice the amount of iron, and almost a thousand times that of copper. In theory, something found everywhere should be as worthless as roadside stones. However, fate plays a trick—this very abundance that’s everywhere is precisely the root reason why humans have been unable to reach it for thousands of years.

In the 18th century, humanity already mastered the “universal key” of metallurgy—carbon reduction. To deal with iron ore, you simply throw the ore into a furnace, add charcoal, light it up—at high temperatures, carbon atoms grab the oxygen, and what’s left is pure iron. This approach is simple and rough, cheap and effective, opening the way for the ironware era.

So when chemists looked at the red bauxite mines spread everywhere, they thought, “Isn’t this easy? Just follow the recipe.”

They threw bauxite into a furnace, added carbon, and burned it! When the furnace temperature rose to 1,000 degrees, the red mineral remained unmoved. When it reached 1,500 degrees, iron had turned into water and molten copper had boiled, yet aluminum oxide still stayed unharmed—almost mocking human futility.

This is the aluminum paradox humanity faced before 1850: we know that every inch of soil beneath our feet locks in a miraculous, silvery-white, rust-resistant light metal, but we just can’t get to it. It’s like a paper man trapped in a two-dimensional world—visible, calculable, yet forever beyond reach.

During this long dark age, aluminum didn’t even have an official name. Until 1807, British chemist Humphry Davy tried to electrolyze molten aluminum oxide but failed; he named the imagined metal “alumium,” and later changed it to “aluminum” and “aluminium.” The name existed, but the substance still slept inside the ore.

Expensive vanity

However, deep in humanity’s bones seems to be a kind of stubbornness of “wanting to do what cannot be done.” Since carbon reduction wouldn’t work, then detour—find an element more aggressive than oxygen, first taking aluminum away from oxygen’s hands.

In 1825, Danish physicist Ørsted designed a workaround: first treat aluminum oxide with chlorine gas to convert it into aluminum chloride, then use metallic potassium to “snatch” the chlorine away, thereby releasing pure aluminum. It worked—he obtained only trace amounts of pure aluminum.

But the economics of this scheme were almost zero. Because extracting metallic potassium itself is extremely complex, dangerous, and expensive—its market value even far exceeded that of silver. This preparation method was limited to the laboratory; industrial production was still light-years away.

In 1854, French chemist Henri Deville, with support from Emperor Napoleon III, replaced potassium with sodium—which had a relatively lower cost—optimizing the reaction conditions and increasing output somewhat, but production costs remained shockingly high.

Even though production costs were enormous, precisely because the metal was so scarce, the tiny quantities of aluminum produced at the time were endowed with extremely high value across society.

In 1852, the price of aluminum was as high as 1,200 USD per kilogram, while in the same period gold was only around 600 USD per kilogram. In other words, aluminum was twice as expensive as gold. In European aristocratic circles, aluminum became the ultimate symbol of status and wealth. It’s said that a monarch bought a garment with aluminum buttons and immediately looked down on other monarchs who couldn’t afford such luxury items.

The most famous aluminum enthusiast was none other than French Emperor Napoleon III. At a grand state banquet he hosted, there was an anecdote still talked about to this day: Napoleon III prepared a set of exquisite aluminum tableware for himself, while other royal members and noble guests could only use gold and silver cups. In other words, on his dining table, aluminum was nobler than gold and silver.

There are even claims that when Napoleon III ascended the throne, he gave up the traditional golden crown and had a crown made of aluminum instead. In today’s terms, it would be like someone making themselves a crown out of soda can material—but at the time, it represented supreme honor.

Even Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev once received a trophy made of aluminum. At the 1855 Paris Exhibition, aluminum blocks were displayed together with the jewels on the crown, and the label clearly read: “Silver from clay.”

Americans were no less impressive. In 1885, when the Washington Monument was completed, the pyramid-shaped cap on top did not use traditional Egyptian obelisks’ gold, but instead used the largest aluminum ingot in the world at the time. The pure aluminum weighing 2.85 kilograms was worth, in that era, no less than gold of the same weight.

Aluminum—the “cheap stuff” that would later be tossed casually into the trash—was once the most honored material humanity could reach.

A crossroads of fate

But historical turning points are often hidden in the least noticeable places.

In the 1880s, there were two young people, separated by an entire Atlantic Ocean. They didn’t know of each other’s existence, yet they were doing almost exactly the same thing.

One was Charles Martin Hall, a 22-year-old college student studying chemistry at Oberlin College in the United States. In his school’s laboratory, he became obsessed with an idea: could he extract aluminum from ore using electrolysis? At the time, the professor told him it was impossible. But Hall’s stubbornness kicked in. He built a crude furnace in his own backyard shed and tested various recipes day after day.

The other was Paul Héroult, also 22 years old, a student at École des Mines in France. He was doing the same thing too: finding a solvent that could dissolve aluminum oxide and conduct electricity, and then using an electric current to break it apart.

Fate played a joke that year.

On February 23, 1886, Hall was first to find the answer: he dissolved aluminum oxide in a molten salt mineral called cryolite, ran an electric current through it, and at the cathode a bright silvery-white metal—pure aluminum—precipitated. He succeeded.

Sometime later the same year, Paul Héroult independently completed the same discovery on the other side of the ocean.

When each of them went to apply for patents, a historic “collision” occurred. The U.S. Patent Office discovered that a Frenchman had already filed an application for a patent that was almost identical. After negotiations, each obtained a patent in their own country.

This is the Hall–Héroult electrolytic method of aluminum smelting that later shocked the world—a legendary tale in the history of science.

The core breakthrough of this technology lies in this: in the past, reducing aluminum with chemical methods required extremely expensive potassium or sodium as reducing agents—costs so high they were almost outrageous. With electrolysis, it only needed electricity—an alternative energy source being harnessed by humanity. Under the作用 of current, aluminum oxide decomposed into aluminum and oxygen as if by magic. Costs fell from the heavens to the ground.

Almost at the same time, Austrian scientist Karl Bayer also completed another piece of the puzzle: he discovered an efficient method to purify aluminum oxide from bauxite ore—that later became widely used as the Bayer process. The complete industrial chain of “bauxite ore → high-purity aluminum oxide → electrolytic aluminum” then took shape.

Aluminum prices began a steep cliff-like decline.

From 1,200 USD per kilogram in 1852 to below 4 USD per kilogram in 1889, and in the early 20th century even fell below 1 USD per kilogram. In just a few decades, aluminum’s price shrank by more than 99.99%. Such a drop is unprecedented across all financial history—an unbreakable record that cannot possibly be surpassed.

A silvery-white noble metal that was once twice as expensive as gold became, overnight, the street-level “commoner.”

From the palace to everyday life

After prices collapsed, aluminum entered its golden age—but this time, “golden” referred to the breadth of applications, not the value.

In 1888, Hall helped found the Pittsburgh Metallurgical Company, which later became known as Alcoa (Aluminum Company of America), growing into a giant of the global aluminum industry. In the same year, Héroult’s patents were rapidly put into use in Europe as well.

Aluminum penetrated every corner of human life at an unprecedented speed.

Transportation devices were the first to embrace this light metal. Aluminum’s density is only one-third that of steel. Making cars and airplanes with it meant lower fuel consumption and longer range. In 1903, the engine cylinder block of the Wright brothers’ “Flyer I” was made of aluminum—without aluminum, there would have been no first step of humanity flying into the blue sky.

The construction industry followed right after. Aluminum alloy doors and windows, curtain walls, and ceilings began to glitter on high-rise buildings across major cities. Aluminum’s corrosion resistance gave architects more room to work, without having to worry about steel rusting.

Packaging was even more aluminum’s domain. Aluminum foil can perfectly block oxygen, moisture, and light, greatly extending the shelf life of food. The bag of chips you tear open and the can of soda you open—an aluminum atom is behind them.

Even in the kitchen, aluminum replaced heavy iron pots and fragile ceramics, becoming the everyday cookware for households everywhere. Aluminum tableware that once only Napoleon III could enjoy is now almost every family’s possession in multiple pieces.

A green cycle

It took humanity nearly a century to learn how to extract aluminum from ore; now it has taken several decades to learn a deeper lesson: since extracting aluminum from ore requires huge energy, why not recycle it again and again?

Aluminum has an advantage other metals can hardly match: it can be used in an infinite loop, with performance degrading by almost nothing. The energy used to recycle one ton of aluminum is only 5% of the energy required to extract primary aluminum from ore. In other words, every soda can you throw away—if it gets recycled—its “rebirth” only needs 5% of the electricity used to make a brand-new can.

Under the global backdrop of “carbon neutrality,” aluminum’s circular economy is writing a new story.

In China, a “green aluminum revolution” is quietly taking place. In Wenshan, Yunnan, teams of young innovators are working on “turning waste into gold”—transforming slag left from aluminum smelting into resources that can be reused. In Laogukou, Hubei, waste aluminum materials are put into a furnace, and after a series of processes they are “transformed” into aluminum ingots and molten aluminum, then remade into new aluminum products and returned to the homes of people everywhere.

From mines to products, from waste to resources—industrial metabolism is forming a perfect closed loop. An empty soda can, after being recycled, melted, and processed again, can reappear on store shelves in just two months with a brand-new look.

Aluminum’s cycle is also humanity’s cycle with nature. We once crazily extracted everything; now we learn to cherish and revere resources.

Fly to the stars and the deep sea

If recycling aluminum is about rooting downward and embracing the Earth, then R&D of aluminum alloys is about growing upward and touching the sky.

From the wing skin of China’s domestically made C919 passenger aircraft to the structural framework of the Long March rockets, high-strength aluminum alloys have long been the preferred materials for manufacturing aerospace vehicles. Lighter than steel, and more reliable than many new materials, they can truly be called the “bones grown in the sky.”

In 2005, Southwest Aluminum Co., Ltd. launched R&D for aluminum materials for the domestically made C919. Starting from zero, going from nothing to something, after a decade of relentless breakthroughs, in 2015 it finally succeeded in developing supporting materials, continuously improving China’s self-sufficiency rate for civil aircraft aluminum materials.

In Guangxi, a master craftsman, Chen Dinggui, has been rooted on the front line, focusing on casting large-specification aluminum alloy ingot technology for aerospace. The world’s largest-specification 7050 aluminum alloy ingot he developed has broken world records four times [reference:33]. From “chasing” to “leading,” China’s aluminum industry has taken an extraordinary journey.

Even further afield, the moon rover “Yutu” uses aluminum alloy for its wheel hubs; space station hull walls use aluminum alloy; and even the spacecraft that future humans land on Mars with will most likely rely on aluminum as support too. Aluminum is helping humanity move toward an even more distant universe.

A fall from the altar and an eternal legend

Returning to the question at the beginning: why does aluminum’s price drop far more than silver’s?

The answer is simple: no matter how much silver falls, it is still a precious metal, still has financial attributes to support it. But aluminum had no financial attributes from the very beginning. It was placed on a sacred pedestal only because humans, for a time, couldn’t reach it. Once a method to conquer it is found, it immediately returns to its essence—an ordinary industrial metal.

This may be the most fascinating aspect of aluminum: it never puts on airs. It isn’t valuable because it’s rare; it’s valuable because it’s useful.

When it was locked inside ore, it stayed silent; when it was laid on Napoleon’s dining table, it shone brightly; when it became the pots, pans, and utensils of households everywhere, it was content with plainness; and when it flew into space and dived into the deep sea, it displayed toughness that even steel can’t compare with.

Aluminum’s story is, in essence, a story about liberation—liberating an element sealed away by nature, so its value no longer depends on scarcity, but on the possibilities it creates for humanity. This liberation itself is a great victory of human wisdom over the laws of nature.

So next time you tear open a pack of chips, twist open a bottle of soda, or casually throw an empty soda can into the trash, take a moment to think: this silvery little thing once stood on Napoleon’s dining table, once adorned a Thai king’s wrist, once was set atop the spire of the Washington Monument.

And now, it’s right within your reach.

This isn’t a fall—it’s a return. Returning to where it truly belongs—every corner of everyday human life.

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