Jan 15 (Reuters) - Individual investors have been

snapping up silver at such a pace it has turned into the most

crowded commodity trade in the market, according to a report

published on Thursday by Vanda Research.

Vanda calculated that in the last 30 ‌days alone, individual

investors have snapped up $921.8 million of exchange-traded

funds underpinned by silver such as the ​iShares Silver Trust

. The iShares ETF recorded $69.2 million in retail

inflows on Wednesday, ‍marking the largest day of retail buying

second only ⁠to 2021, when retail ⁠investors last drove prices

skyward.

The ETF is up 31.3% so far this year and has soared ‌210.9% in

the last 12 months. Silver ​has set a series of new highs. On

Thursday, silver prices traded at $91.90 an ounce late in the

afternoon, up from $72.62 on ⁠the first trading year, but ‍below

the record ​of more than $93 intraday Wednesday and Thursday,

according to data from LSEG.

Meanwhile, the MSCI ACWI Select Silver Miners Investable

Index, which tracks stock prices ‍of mining companies with shares

particularly exposed to changes in the price of the metal, has

soared some 225% in the last 12 months.

That 2021 bull market in silver came as part of a broader retail

speculative boom in meme stocks like GameStop ( GME ) and AMC

Entertainment ( AMC ). But this time, Vanda ​says, there ‍are more

concrete reasons underpinning the rally.

"This isn't just a meme-stock spike; we are witnessing a

structural accumulation that has now surpassed ​the heights of

the 2021 'Silver Spike'," Vanda noted. That means it is time to

treat silver as "a core macro trading asset" and not just a

speculative bet, it added, pointing to the fact that retail

investors are big players in the ProShares UltraShort Silver ETF

, an inverse leveraged fund that returns double any

decline in the daily price ​of silver.

Others remain more wary.

"We waited 45 years for silver to break above $50 an ounce

and now we've seen it zoom past $80 in less than three months,"

said Kathy Kriskey, head ‍of alternatives ETF strategy at

Invesco ( IVZ ).

(Suzanne McGee in Providence RI; Editing by David Gregorio)