MMTLP Was the Canary. Silver Is the Mine.

By Ann Vandersteel

Wall Street rarely loses.

Not because it is always right, it is protected from the consequences.

When financial schemes collapse, the public never confront banks or hedge funds directly. Instead, everything is routed through a maze of federal agencies including FINRA, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the DTCC.

These institutions claim independence, invoke complexity, and operate behind closed doors.

That curtain matters.

Because when regulators control the process, they also control the outcome. Investigations disappear. Enforcement stalls. Documents stay sealed. Accountability is buried under procedure.

This is how Wall Street wins. Not in the market, but through the agencies tasked with regulating it.

Only occasionally does something slip through.

Not an explosion.
A warning.

Canaries do not cause explosions.
They warn that the air is toxic.

MMTLP was that warning.

What is now surfacing in the silver market suggests the mine itself is filled with gas and the same regulators are standing guard at the entrance telling Americans not to look inside.

Regulators Allowed Trading Then Shut It Down

MMTLP originated as a placeholder dividend created during a corporate restructuring involving Torchlight Energy Resources and Meta Materials.

The issuer clearly stated in SEC filings and press releases that the dividend was not intended to trade.

Yet MMTLP traded for months across dozens of brokerages. It was marginable. It was lent. It was heavily shorted.

This raises an obvious question. Why was trading allowed at all?

The issuer’s filings were clear. Yet despite calls from both CEOs of Torchlight and Meta, plus numerous investor complaints, neither FINRA nor the SEC intervened until settlement became unavoidable.

Settlement Failure Triggered the Halt

As the corporate action for MMTLP to spin-out into a non-trading oil and gas company (Next Bridge Hydrocarbons) approached, a moment when real shares had to be delivered and reconciled, evidence suggests regulators were confronted with a serious problem.

Due to the heavy naked short selling of MMTLP on the over-the-counter (OTC) market, there were more claims than certificated shares.

Under normal market rules, this triggers forced buy-ins, share reconciliation and broker dealer accountability.

Instead FINRA issued a U3 trading halt, permanently freezing MMTLP.

More than 65,000 retail investors remain trapped three years later.

The MMTLP scandal was not a glitch.
It was not volatility.
It was not a retail trading frenzy.

It was regulatory intervention to protect short sellers from infinite risk and stop evidence of their criminal racket from surfacing.

FOIA Emails Raise Alarming Questions

Immediately following FINRA’s U3 halt, MMTLP investors began collecting evidence of the fraud committed against them. As part of their campaign, over 1100 FOIA’s have been filed with a meager 1% response rate. Though statistically insignificant, the FOIA’s received have uncovered substantial coordination between the SEC and FINRA before, during and after the U3 halt.

 

Most recently (and most significant) a  FOIA released email from Howard Meyerson of the Financial Information Forum, a broker dealer trade group, reveals direct coordination with senior SEC officials including John Prochilo and David Saltiel.

The FOIA’d email admits something extraordinary.

Because of the prior FINRA trading halt, shares on loan COULD NOT BE RECOVERED.

That is an admission of failed settlement.

Instead of enforcing buy-ins, regulators discussed blocking reconciliation, not to protect investors but to manage broker exposure.

This goes beyond negligence and points to regulatory capture and the weaponizing of financial regulators’ authority against issuers and innocent investors.

FOIA’d email

Gary Gensler’s Role Draws Scrutiny

The MMTLP halt occurred on SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s watch.

This is the same Gary Gensler who previously served as Chief Financial Officer for Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign.

In that role Gensler oversaw campaign finances and expenditures including payments routed through Perkins Coie, the law firm later identified in public reporting and the Durham investigation as central to funding and disseminating the Steele dossier.

Critics argue this history raises serious questions about the independence of a regulatory agency that insists it operates above politics.

Regulators Picked the Winners and Losers

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes recently summarized what MMTLP investors lived through.

 

The rules against naked short selling exist, but when enforcing them threatens powerful firms, regulators shut the market down instead.

https://x.com/annvandersteel/status/2005634934841499976?s=20

The outcome had little to do with market forces and everything to do with regulatory choices. Those choices protected Wall Street firms while leaving retail investors with no exit. That is not a free market. It is government intervention acting in the interests of financial institutions.

MMTLP Was the Canary. Silver Shows the Mine Is Toxic

What makes MMTLP impossible to dismiss is what is now emerging in the silver market.

Recent estimates indicate Bank of America and Citigroup alone hold massive net short silver positions far exceeding annual global mine supply.

Paper claims now dwarf physical reality.

The system survives only if delivery is never forced.

Sound familiar?

Same Structure. Same Risk. Bigger Scale

The pattern is identical.

Synthetic supply is created.
Positions are netted and obscured.
Transparency disappears.
Settlement is delayed or avoided.
When reality approaches, rules are suspended.

In MMTLP, that suspension came from FINRA.

In commodities it comes through cash settlement rollovers and emergency rule changes.

Different markets.
Same playbook.

Investors Take the Fight to the SEC

With regulators refusing to answer calls for transparency, investors are now forcing the issue into the open.

The MMTLP investor community will hold a press conference on January 12 2026 at 10 AM outside the Securities and Exchange Commission, organized by Ann Vandersteel, co-founder of American Made Action and host of Steel News.

According to organizers the press conference will focus on the FINRA U3 halt FOIA released evidence of regulatory coordination failed settlement and unreconciled shares and allegations of regulatory capture protecting Wall Street.

The goal is simple. Answers.

Press Conference: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – Headquarters

100 F St. NE, Washington, DC  20549

The Canary Came First

Historically miners used canaries to detect danger before it was visible.

Canaries did not cause explosions.
They revealed toxic air.

MMTLP may have served the same purpose.

Silver could be the mine.

Unanswered Questions Remain

Why was MMTLP allowed to trade at all?

Why were buy-ins never enforced?

Who authorized FINRA’s U3 halt?

Why were broker dealers protected while retail investors were trapped?

And why do the same settlement avoidance patterns now appear in the silver market on a scale that could dwarf MMTLP?

On January 12, those questions will be asked publicly.

Silence is no longer neutral.

It is an answer.

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