Osmium as a
Tangible Asset

Crystalline osmium has undergone a considerable increase in value since the start of trading, not least because of its extremely low occurrence: Worldwide, only about 1 cubic meter of mineable osmium is available, corresponding to a total weight of just over 20 tons. The raw material the rarest stable element and – in its crystalline form – the most valuable precious metal in the world. By comparison, the total amount of gold mined is about 10,000 cubic meters, or about 200,000 tons. Unlike gold, moreover, osmium is unlikely to appear for resale on the investment market: once it is made into jewelry, it cannot simply be melted down and recast like other metals. This would cause the osmium piece to lose its unique crystal surface again, the fingerprint required for its certification in the Osmium World Database and thus a key source of its value. There are therefore fewer and fewer new osmium pieces available for in the jewelry and luxury markets, an effect referred to as the Osmium Thin-out.

Osmium Trade: Outright Security

Trading in crystalline certified osmium is highly regulated: The German Osmium Institute is solely responsible for its marketing and certification. The listing of osmium pieces in the osmium database, uniquely assigned identification codes, and documentation of ownership changes provide effective theft prevention. In addition, osmium is absolutely counterfeit-proof due to its physical properties: Because of its unique crystal structure, it is hardly ever recycled because this means that proof of authenticity is no longer possible.

Osmium Big Bang

All these factors make osmium one of the most interesting and promising tangible assets. This is also reflected in the price development of the last few years, which can be tracked on sites such as osmium-preis.com, finanzwelt.de or boerse-am-sonntag.de: Since 2017, the prices for crystalline osmium have been rising consistently by around 15 percent per year. In the long term, investors in real assets are speculating that osmium will become increasingly difficult to acquire. This could be due to scarcity resulting from industry processing, above all from jewelers and goldsmiths. Experts anticipate a real osmium “Big Bang”: as soon as the entire world stock of osmium has been sold, only institutional and private investors in tangible assets will supply the (jewelry) market with osmium. This scenario is further supported and reinforced by the osmium thin-out. This could probably result in an even stronger price change.